Abstract
Bone mass increases rapidly in adolescence, and achieving higher bone mineral density (BMD) during this period can help prevent osteoporosis. However, the effects of metallic mercury on bone health remain controversial. Previous studies have discussed perimenopausal women and older adults, while the association of blood mercury with BMD in adolescents is yet to be studied. Date was collected from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2011–2018. Weighted multiple linear regression models were used to explore the association of blood mercury levels with BMD in adolescents, while smooth curve fittings and weighted generalized additive models were used to identify the potential nonlinear association. We found that blood mercury levels were negatively associated with BMD in adolescents, though not significantly, based on the results of statistical analyses of 2818 participants. Additionally, the trend in BMD with changes in blood mercury was different in male and female adolescents. We also found an inverted U-shaped association between blood mercury and BMD in male and Mexican–American adolescents. This suggests that increased blood mercury levels within a range may benefit bone health in male adolescents (inflection point: 5.44 nmol/L) and Mexican–American adolescents (inflection point: 5.49 nmol/L), while higher blood mercury levels may harm bone health. More prospective research is needed to confirm our findings.
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Data Availability
The data used in this article has been uploaded to Mendeley Data; the specific link is Zhao, Mingyi (2022), “Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2011–2018,” Mendeley Data, V1, https://doi.org/10.17632/y8nxxzyszy.1. Please contact the corresponding author for more information.
Abbreviations
- BMD:
-
Bone mineral density
- NHANES:
-
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
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Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 81970248) and the 2022 College Students Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program (S2022105330683) at the Third Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Ke Xu and Bingqian Gao contributed equally to this work. Ke Xu: conceptualization, writing — original draft, visualization. Bingqian Gao: methodology, writing — review and editing. Mingyi Zhao: resources, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition. Tingfeng Liu: software, data curation. Jiayi Li: formal analysis. Yixin Xiang: investigation. Yicheng Fu: validation.
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NHANES is a study involving human participants that was approved by the Ethical Review Board of the National Center for Health. All participants provided written informed consent, details of which are available at wwwn.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/.
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The data used in the analysis of this study have been included in this article. The raw data can be obtained from the NHANES official website (wwwn.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/).
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Xu, K., Gao, B., Liu, T. et al. Association of blood mercury levels with bone mineral density in adolescents aged 12–19. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 46933–46939 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-25701-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-25701-6