Abstract
Active and passive exposure to tobacco smoke may increase risk of cognitive decline. However, effects of enhanced the aging process on the association of urinary nicotine metabolites with cognitive impairment remain unclear. In this study, 6657 Chinese older adults completed the physical examinations and cognitive tests. We measured urinary nicotine metabolite levels, mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNA-CN), and relative telomere length (RTL) and analyzed effects of urinary nicotine metabolites and their interaction with mtDNA-CN or RTL on cognitive impairment by generalized linear models and qg-computation, respectively. Each 1-unit increase in urinary 3-OHCot, 3-OHCotGluc, CotGluc, or NicGluc levels corresponded to a 1.05-, 1.09-, 1.04-, and 0.90-fold increased risk of cognitive impairment. Each 1-quantile increment in the mixture level of 8 nicotine metabolites corresponded to an increment of 1.40- and 1.34-fold risk of cognitive impairment in individuals with longer RTL or low mtDNA-CN. Urinary 3-OHCotGluc and RTL or mtDNA-CN exhibited an additive effect on cognitive impairment in addition to the mixture of 8 nicotine metabolites and mtDNA-CN. The findings suggested that aging process may increase the risk of tobacco-related cognitive impairment.
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Abbreviations
- AGR:
-
Albumin/globulin ratio
- AP:
-
The attributable proportion due to interaction
- BMI:
-
Body mass index
- Cot:
-
Cotinine
- CotGluc:
-
Cotinine N-β-d-glucuronide
- CNO:
-
(S)-cotinine N-oxide
- 3-OHCot:
-
Trans-3′-hydroxy cotinine
- HyPyBut:
-
Rac 4-hydroxy-4-(3-pyridyl)butanoic acid dicyclohexylamine salt
- mtDNA-CN:
-
Mitochondrial DNA copy number
- NNO:
-
(1′S, 2′S)-nicotine-1′-oxide
- NicGluc:
-
Nicotine-N-β-glucuronide
- NorNic:
-
(R, S)-nornicotine
- NorCot:
-
(R, S)-nornicotine
- 3-OHCotGluc:
-
Trans-3′-hydroxy cotinine O-β-D-glucuronide
- OR:
-
Odd ratios
- RERI:
-
Relative excess risk due to interaction
- RTL:
-
Relative telomere length
- 95%CI:
-
95% Confidence interval
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Acknowledgements
We thank all the volunteers who participated in the study and the doctors at the local hospital for screening patients with mild cognitive impairment and dementia using the Mini Mental State Examination score.
Funding
This project is supported by Shenzhen Basic Research Project (JCYJ20190807103401672), Guangdong Medical Science and Technology Research Project (A2020144), Shenzhen Key Medical Discipline Construction Fund (SZXK069), Sanming Project of Medicine in Shenzhen (SZSM201611090).
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J Hou: Investigation, Data curation, Methodology, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing-Original Draft.
W Liu and B Zhu: investigation, formal analysis, methodology, methodology and writing-review and editing. C Yuan, L Wang, E Gao, J Zhang, and Y Huang: investigation, data curation, writing-review and editing. Q Zhu and T Li: investigation, methodology, formal analysis, and writing-review and editing. D Wu, F Zhu, C Huang, J Huang, S Lai and S Lu: investigation, formal analysis, writing-review & editing. L Nie, L Zhou, F Ye, and X Yang: investigation, methodology, writing-review& editing. J Yuan: conceptualization, methodology, supervision, writing-reviewing and editing. J Liu: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, validation, supervision, funding acquisition, project administration, writing-original draft.
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Jian Hou, Chao Huang and Bo Zhu are the co-first authors.
Highlights
• Urinary nicotine metabolites were related to cognitive impairment.
• mtDNA-CN, RTL, or serum AGR was associated with cognitive impairment.
• Urinary 3-OHCotGluc and RTL had an additive effect on cognitive impairment.
• Nicotine metabolite mixture with low mtDNA-CN may synergistically decline cognition.
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Hou, J., Huang, C., Zhu, B. et al. Effect modification by aging on the associations of nicotine exposure with cognitive impairment among Chinese elderly. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 9530–9542 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22392-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22392-3