Urinary antimony and leukocyte telomere length: An analysis of NHANES 1999–2002

Abstract

Telomeres are repetitive DNA sequences (TTAGGG) at the end of chromosomes. Cells with critically short telomeres enter replicative senescence and apoptosis. Several in vitro studies report that antimony causes cell apoptosis in human leukocyte cell lines. The goal of this analysis was to investigate whether there is an association between antimony exposure and leukocyte telomere length (LTL) among US adults aged 20 and older based on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2002. We used multivariate linear regression to analyze the association of urinary antimony with LTL. LTL was log-natural transformed and the results were re-transformed and presented as percent differences. After adjustment for potential confounders, individuals in the 3rd and 4th quartiles of urinary antimony had statistically significantly shorter LTL (−4.78%, 95% CI: −8.42, −0.90; and −6.11%, 95% CI: −11.04, −1.00, respectively) compared to the lowest referent quartile, with evidence of a dose-response relationship (p-value for trend = 0.03). Shorter LTL with antimony was driven by middle aged (40–59 years) and older (60–85 years) adult groups. The association may be biologically plausible because of reported oxidative stress and apoptosis effects of antimony on blood cells, effects known to shorten telomere length.

Exploring telomere length in mother–newborn pairs in relation to exposure to multiple toxic metals and potential modifying effects by nutritional factors

“…Blood antimony concentrations were inversely associated with rTL in maternal leucocytes. This is in agreement with a previous study, based on the US NHANES database, which showed shorter rTL in relation to increasing urinary concentration of antimony (geometric mean 0.12 μg/L) in adults, proposed to be mediated via oxidative stress [54]. The blood antimony concentration in the present study (median 2.6 μg/L) corresponded to slightly higher urinary concentrations of antimony (median 0.18 μg/L) than in the American study, and the association seemed to weaken markedly by adjustment for zinc and folate.…”

Characterization of urinary concentrations of heavy metals among socioeconomically disadvantaged black pregnant women

“…Recently, there is growing evidence that exposure to antimony (Sb) is associated with increased risk for mortality, sleep disorder, and other adverse health outcomes (Guo et al 2016;Scinicariello et al 2017;Scinicariello and Buser 2016). In early 2000, median concentrations of urinary Sb ranged from 0.04 to 0.05 μg/L in the USA (Bloom et al 2015;Yorita Christensen 2013) whereas a recent NHANES study reported geometric mean levels of urinary Sb for males and females of 0.12 μg/L (Scinicariello and Buser 2016). Geometric mean levels of urinary Sb in our study (0.29 μg/L) were higher than those in the aforementioned previous studies.…”

Urinary metals and leukocyte telomere length in American Indian communities: The Strong Heart and the Strong Heart Family Study

“…The distribution of ΣAs, Cd and W were log-transformed for the analyses. As in other studies, LTL was also log-transformed to improve normality (23,(33)(34)(35). We described the median and interquartile range of LTL and metal levels across participant's characteristics.…”