Association between Serum Cotinine Levels and Bone Mineral Density: An Analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)

Jian-Guo Fang; Duo-Jun Wang; Hao-Yu Yang; Hui Zhang; Jin-Yu Tong; Zai-Jun Lin

doi:10.1155/2022/6830705

Association between Serum Cotinine Levels and Bone Mineral Density: An Analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)

Int J Endocrinol. 2022 Sep 6:2022:6830705. doi: 10.1155/2022/6830705. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Jian-Guo Fang¹, Duo-Jun Wang¹, Hao-Yu Yang², Hui Zhang¹, Jin-Yu Tong¹, Zai-Jun Lin¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Spine Surgery, Shidong Hospital Affiliated to University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, No. 999, Shiguang Road, Shanghai 200438, China.
² School of Basic Medicine, Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, Henan, China.

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the relationship between serum cotinine and lumbar bone mineral density (BMD) among 7905 participants aged 30 years and over.

Method: A total of 3945 men and 3960 women from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2011-2018 were included in this cross-sectional analysis. Independent variable was serum cotinine, which is a biomarker of cigarette exposure. The outcome variable was lumbar BMD. We investigated the associations of serum cotinine levels and lumbar BMD using multivariable linear regression models.

Results: Serum cotinine concentration was negatively associated with lumbar BMD after adjustment of relevant covariables (β = -0.039, 95% CI: -0.078 to -0.014, P = 0.005). However, in the subgroup analysis stratified by gender, this negative association remained only in women (β = -0.072, 95% CI: -0.132 to -0.012, P = 0.019).

Conclusion: Our study suggested that elevated serum cotinine level correlated with decreased lumbar BMD, especially in women. This finding indicated that reducing cigarette exposure and maintaining serum cotinine at a low level may be beneficial to bone health for adults.