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Associations of Dietary and Plasma Copper Levels with Liver Function in a Chinese Population

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Abstract

The potential mechanisms underlying the association between copper (Cu) exposure and impaired liver function are unclear. This study aimed to investigate the potential associations of dietary Cu intake and plasma Cu levels with liver function biomarkers. A cross-sectional study was performed to assess liver function biomarkers—namely, levels of total bilirubin (TBIL), direct bilirubin (DBIL), indirect bilirubin (IBIL), alanine transaminase (ALT), and aspartate transaminase (AST)—in 2376 subjects in Guangxi, China. Dietary Cu intake was determined from a food frequency questionnaire containing 109 common foods. Plasma Cu concentrations were determined by inductively coupled plasma‒mass spectrometry. Multiple linear regression and multivariate restricted cubic splines (RCS) were used to evaluate the correlations of plasma Cu levels and dietary Cu levels with liver function biomarkers. The covariate-adjusted results of the linear regression analysis showed that plasma Cu levels were significantly negatively correlated with serum IBIL (β =  − 0.37), DBIL (β =  − 0.22), and TBIL levels (β =  − 0.32) (all p < 0.05), and dietary Cu was negatively correlated with serum AST levels (β =  − 0.12, p < 0.05). The RCS analysis further indicated a negative linear relationship between dietary Cu levels and AST levels. In summary, our results suggested that the plasma Cu level is associated with serum bilirubin levels and that dietary Cu intake is associated with serum AST levels. Further studies are needed to validate these associations and elucidate the underlying mechanisms.

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Acknowledgements

The authors express their gratitude for all the participants and cooperating units who helped to complete this study.

Funding

The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 81960583, 81760577, and 81560523), Major Science and Technology Projects in Guangxi (GKAA22399), Guangxi Science and Technology Development Project (grant nos. AD 17129003 and 18050005), Guangxi Natural Science Foundation for Innovation Research Team (2019GXNSFGA245002), and Guangxi Scholarship Fund of Guangxi Education Department of China.

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  1. Yanfei Wei, Jiansheng Cai, and Xiaoting Mo equally contributed to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Public Health, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, 530021, China

    Yanfei Wei, Xiaoting Mo, Min Xu, Qiumei Liu, Junling Zhang, Shuzhen Liu, Yinxia Lin, Shenxiang Huang, Jian Qin & Zhiyong Zhang

  2. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Microenvironmental Regulation, Guilin Medical University, Guilin541004, China

    Jiansheng Cai

  3. Department of Environmental Health and Occupational Medicine, School of Public Health, Guilin Medical University, Guilin, 541004, China

    Zhiyong Zhang

  4. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Environmental Exposomics and Entire Lifecycle Health, Guilin Medical University, Guilin, 541004, China

    Zhiyong Zhang

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Contributions

YW: writing—original draft preparation and writing—review and editing; JC: investigation, data supervision, and project administration; MX and XM: investigation, and data curation; QL, JZ, SL, and YL: methodology and formal analysis; JQ: software and validation; SH: data curation; JQ: conceptualization and resources; and ZZ: writing—original draft preparation, writing—review and editing, investigation, data supervision, and project administration. All the authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jian Qin or Zhiyong Zhang.

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Approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of Guilin Medical University (No: 20180702–3). The procedures used in this study adhered to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.

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Wei, Y., Cai, J., Mo, X. et al. Associations of Dietary and Plasma Copper Levels with Liver Function in a Chinese Population. Biol Trace Elem Res 201, 3268–3278 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-022-03445-7

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