Correlation between urinary rare earth elements and liver function in a Zhuang population aged 35-74 years in Nanning

Xingxi Luo; Liling Wei; Shun Liu; Kaili Wu; Dongping Huang; Suyang Xiao; Erna Guo; Lei Lei; Xiaoqiang Qiu; Xiaoyun Zeng

doi:10.1016/j.jtemb.2024.127426

Correlation between urinary rare earth elements and liver function in a Zhuang population aged 35-74 years in Nanning

J Trace Elem Med Biol. 2024 Mar 9:84:127426. doi: 10.1016/j.jtemb.2024.127426. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Xingxi Luo¹, Liling Wei¹, Shun Liu², Kaili Wu¹, Dongping Huang³, Suyang Xiao¹, Erna Guo¹, Lei Lei¹, Xiaoqiang Qiu¹, Xiaoyun Zeng⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, School of Public Health, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi 530021, China.
² Department of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health, School of Public Health, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi 530021, China.
³ Department of Sanitary Chemistry, School of Public Health, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi 530021, China.
⁴ Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, School of Public Health, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi 530021, China; Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, School of Public Health, Guilin Medical University, Guilin, Guangxi 541000, China. Electronic address: zengxiaoyun@gxmu.edu.cn.

PMID: 38579497
DOI: 10.1016/j.jtemb.2024.127426

Abstract

Background: Animal studies have shown that exposure to REEs can cause severe liver damage, but evidence from population studies is still lacking. Therefore, we investigated the relationship between REEs concentrations in urine and liver function in the population.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study on 1024 participants in Nanning, China. An inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) was used to detect the concentrations of 12 REEs in urine. The relationship between individual exposure to individual REE and liver function was analyzed by multiple linear regression. Finally, the effects of co-exposure to 5 REEs on liver function were assessed by a weighted sum of quartiles (WQS) regression model and a Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR) model.

Results: The detection rate of 5 REEs, lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce), praseodymium (Pr), neodymium (Nd), and dysprosium (Dy), is greater than 60%. After multiple factor correction, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, and Dy were positively correlated with serum ALP, Ce, Pr, and Nd were positively correlated with serum AST, while Ce was negatively correlated with serum TBIL and DBIL. Both WQS and BKMR results indicate that the co-exposure of the 5 REEs is positively correlated with serum ALP and AST, while negatively correlated with serum DBIL. There were potential interactions between La and Ce, La and Dy in the association of co-exposure of the 5 REEs with serum ALP.

Conclusions: The co-exposure of the 5 REEs was positively correlated with serum ALP and AST, and negatively correlated with serum DBIL.

Keywords: Co-exposure; Liver function; Rare earth elements; Urine.