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Association of lead exposure with cardiovascular risk factors and diseases in Chinese adults

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Abstract

We aimed to determine whether lead exposure was associated with cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and risk factors in Chinese adults. Five thousand three hundred and forty-eight subjects were enrolled from 16 sites in China. Blood lead level (BLL) was measured by atomic absorption spectrometry. Cardiovascular diseases included coronary heart disease, stroke, and myocardial infarction. Cardiovascular risk factors included body mass index (BMI), fasting plasma glucose (FPG), lipid profile, and blood pressure. We found that 5.9% of the study population had prevalent CVD. Medians (interquartile range) of BLLs were 44.00 μg/L (29.00–62.48) for men and 37.70 μg/L (25.00–54.60) for women. The prevalence of CVD gradually and markedly increased with increasing BLL quartiles in women (P for trend < 0.01), but not in men. After adjustment for age, current smoking, and drinking, BLLs were independently associated with cardiovascular risk factors including BMI, FPG, and blood pressure in women (all P < 0.05), but not in men. Binary logistic regression showed that increased quartiles of BLL were significantly and positively associated with increased odds ratio of prevalent CVD (P for trend < 0.01) in women. This association was independent of age, smoking, drinking, education, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and lipid profile. In conclusion, BLL in the range currently considered acceptable is independently associated with CVD, which is the leading cause of death in China. Further practical and cost-effective efforts to reduce lead exposure may be warranted.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Weiping Tu, Bin Li, and Ling Hu for helping organize this investigation.

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Author notes

  1. Chi Chen and Qin Li contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute and Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200011, China

    Chi Chen, Qin Li, Xiaomin Nie, Bing Han, Yi Chen, Fangzhen Xia, Hualing Zhai, Ningjian Wang & Yingli Lu

Authors
  1. Chi Chen
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  2. Qin Li
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  3. Xiaomin Nie
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  4. Bing Han
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  5. Yi Chen
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  7. Hualing Zhai
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  8. Ningjian Wang
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  9. Yingli Lu
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Contributions

Y.L. had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Y.L. and N.W. were responsible for study concept and design. C.C., Q.L., X.N., B.H., Y.C., F.X., and H.Z. conducted the research. C.C., and Q.L. analyzed the data and drafted the manuscript, which was revised for important intellectual content by all authors. Y.L. and N.W. are guarantors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ningjian Wang or Yingli Lu.

Ethics declarations

Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008. All participants provided written informed consent at enrollment.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Funding

This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (81270885, 81570726, 81600609), Shanghai JiaoTong University School of Medicine (2014), and Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (14495810700, 16410723200), as well as Three-year Action Plan for Public Health System Construction in Shanghai by Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning (2015–2017).

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Chen, C., Li, Q., Nie, X. et al. Association of lead exposure with cardiovascular risk factors and diseases in Chinese adults. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 22275–22283 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9884-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9884-6

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