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Urinary cadmium and estimated dietary cadmium in the Women’s Health Initiative

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 26, pages 303–308 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Cadmium, a heavy metal dispersed in the environment as a result of industrial and agricultural applications, has been implicated in several human diseases including renal disease, cancers, and compromised bone health. In the general population, the predominant sources of cadmium exposure are tobacco and diet. Urinary cadmium (uCd) reflects long-term exposure and has been frequently used to assess cadmium exposure in epidemiological studies; estimated dietary intake of cadmium (dCd) has also been used in several studies. The validity of dCd in comparison with uCd is unclear. This study aimed to compare dCd, estimated from food frequency questionnaires, to uCd measured in spot urine samples from 1,002 participants of the Women’s Health Initiative. Using linear regression, we found that dCd was not statistically significantly associated with uCd (β=0.006, P-value=0.14). When stratified by smoking status, dCd was not significantly associated with uCd both in never smokers (β=0.006, P-value=0.09) and in ever smokers (β=0.003, P-value=0.67). Our results suggest that because of the lack of association between estimated dCd and measured uCd, dietary estimation of cadmium exposure should be used with caution in epidemiologic studies.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the NIH/NIEHS R01ES019667, and NIH/NCI CA K05152715. WHI is supported through NIH/NHLBRI contracts HHSN268201100046C, HSN268201100001C, HHSN268201100002C, HHSN268201100003C, and HHSN268201100004C. SMQ was supported by Biostatistics, Epidemiologic and Bioinformatic Training in Environmental Health Training Grant NIEHS T32ES015459.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Sabah M Quraishi

  2. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Cancer Prevention, Public Health Sciences, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Sabah M Quraishi, Scott V Adams, Marian L Neuhouser & Polly A Newcomb

  3. Environmental Chemistry and Technology Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Martin Shafer

  4. Department of Preventive Medicine, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA

    Jaymie R Meliker

  5. Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA

    Wenjun Li

  6. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

    Juhua Luo

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  1. Sabah M Quraishi
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Correspondence to Polly A Newcomb.

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Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology website

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Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Short List of WHI Investigators

Program Office: (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, Maryland) Jacques Rossouw, Shari Ludlam, Dale Burwen, Joan McGowan, Leslie Ford, and Nancy Geller.

Clinical Coordinating Center: Clinical Coordinating Center: (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA) Garnet Anderson, Ross Prentice, Andrea LaCroix, and Charles Kooperberg.

Investigators and Academic Centers: (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA) JoAnn E. Manson; (MedStar Health Research Institute/Howard University, Washington, DC) Barbara V. Howard; (Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford, CA) Marcia L. Stefanick; (The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH) Rebecca Jackson; (University of Arizona, Tucson/Phoenix, AZ) Cynthia A. Thomson; (University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY) Jean Wactawski-Wende; (University of Florida, Gainesville/Jacksonville, FL) Marian Limacher; (University of Iowa, Iowa City/Davenport, IA) Robert Wallace; (University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA) Lewis Kuller; (Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC) Sally Shumaker.

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Quraishi, S., Adams, S., Shafer, M. et al. Urinary cadmium and estimated dietary cadmium in the Women’s Health Initiative. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 26, 303–308 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2015.40

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