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The Effect of Mixture of Heavy Metals on Obesity in Individuals ≥50 Years of Age

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Abstract

Little is known about the association between a mixture of heavy metals and obesity among individuals ≥50 years of age with comorbidities. Thus, we identified the associations of serum cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), and mercury (Hg) with obesity using linear regression models; weighted quantile sum (WQS) regression, quantile g-computation (qgcomp), and Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR) were conducted as secondary analyses. Of the 6434 subjects included in the analysis, 13.8% had obesity and 44.6% had abdominal obesity. In the logistic regression model, serum Hg was associated with obesity and abdominal obesity, and significant trends were observed for these heavy metal tertiles (p < 0.001). Serum Hg levels were also associated with body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC). The WQS index was significantly associated with both obesity (OR = 1.43, 95% CI: 1.40–1.46) and abdominal obesity (β = 1.51, 95% CI: 1.48–1.54). The qgcomp index also found a significant association between heavy metals and both obesity (OR = 1.35, 95% CI: 1.12–1.63) and abdominal obesity (OR = 1.34, 95% CI: 1.12–1.60). Serum Hg was the most heavily weighed heavy metal in these models. In BKMR analysis, the overall effect of the mixture was significantly associated with obesity, BMI, and WC. Serum Hg showed positive trends and was observed as the most important factor associated with obesity, BMI, and WC. Our findings were largely robust to secondary analyses that used three novel mixture modeling approaches: WQS, qpcomp, and BKMR. Given increasing exposure to heavy metals, well-characterized cohorts of individuals aged ≥50 years are required to determine the mixed effects of heavy metals on obesity and related diseases.

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Data Availability

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to all research staff for their excellent contributions in data collection in the survey.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MEST) (grant nos. NRF2013R1A1A3008851 and 2018R1D1A1B07049610).

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  1. Department of Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy and Research Institute of Life and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Sunchon National University, Sunchon, Jeonnam, Republic of Korea

    Hai Nguyen Duc, Ho** Oh & Min-Sun Kim

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  1. Hai Nguyen Duc
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  2. Ho** Oh
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Contributions

Study concept and design (H.N.D); acquisition of data (H.N.D, H.O, M.S.K); analysis and interpretation of data (H.N.D.); statistical analysis (H.N.D); and drafting of the manuscript (H.N.D).

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Correspondence to Min-Sun Kim.

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Consent to Participate

Before investigations, all participants in KNHANES provided written informed consent, which was carried out by the Health and Nutrition Examination Department of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This study was approved by the KNHANES inquiry commission (IRB Approval numbers: 2009-01CON-03-2C, 2010-02CON-21-C, 2011-02CON-06-C, 2012-01EXP-01-2C, 2013-07CON-03-4C, 2013-12EXP-03-5C). From 2016 to 2017, KNHANES was exempt from review regarding research ethics under the Bioethics and Safety Act.

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Duc, H.N., Oh, H. & Kim, MS. The Effect of Mixture of Heavy Metals on Obesity in Individuals ≥50 Years of Age. Biol Trace Elem Res 200, 3554–3571 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-021-02972-z

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