Assessment of Individual and Mixed Effects of Six Minerals on Thyroid Hormones in Chinese Pregnant Women

Abstract

The biosynthesis of thyroid hormones is essential for brain and neurological development. It requires iodine as a key component but is also influenced by other nutrients. Evidence for the combined nutrient status in relation to thyroid hormones during pregnancy is limited. We aimed to investigate the joint associations of iodine, selenium, zinc, calcium, magnesium and iron with maternal thyroid functions in 489 pregnant women from Hangzhou, China. Serum levels of six essential minerals and thyroid function parameters were measured during the first antenatal visit. Linear regression, quantile g-computation and Bayesian kernel machine regression were used to explore the individual and joint relationships between the six minerals and thyroid hormones. Linear regression analyses revealed that calcium was positively associated with free triiodothyronine (FT3). Zinc was positively associated with free thyroxine (FT4). Iodine was negatively associated with thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and positively associated with FT3 and FT4. The quantile g-computation and BKMR models indicated that the joint nutrient concentration was negatively associated with TSH and positively associated with FT3 and FT4. Among the six minerals, iodine contributed most to thyroid function. The findings suggested that maintaining the appropriate concentration of minerals, either as individuals or a mixture, is important for thyroid health during pregnancy.

Relationships between minerals’ intake and blood homocysteine levels based on three machine learning methods: a large cross-sectional study

“…Minerals are an important group of nutrients, however, their joint role in the impact on health has not been sufficiently discussed nowadays. To the best of our knowledge, there is only one literature assessing the relationship between mixed minerals and health with advanced statistical methods [ 36 ]. It evaluated the relationship between six minerals (iodine, selenium, zinc, calcium, magnesium and iron) and maternal thyroid function in 489 pregnant women in Hangzhou, China.…”