Higher blood selenium level is associated with lower risk of hyperhomocysteinemia in the elderly

Ting Wang; Liqin Su; Xi Chen; Sisi Wang; Xu Han; Yibin Cheng; Shaobin Lin; Liang Ding; Jingyi Liu; Chen Chen; Frederick W Unverzagt; Ann M Hake; Yinlong Jin; Sujuan Gao

doi:10.1016/j.jtemb.2022.127078

Higher blood selenium level is associated with lower risk of hyperhomocysteinemia in the elderly

J Trace Elem Med Biol. 2023 Jan:75:127078. doi: 10.1016/j.jtemb.2022.127078. Epub 2022 Sep 29.

Authors

Ting Wang¹, Liqin Su², Xi Chen³, Sisi Wang⁴, Xu Han³, Yibin Cheng³, Shaobin Lin³, Liang Ding³, Jingyi Liu³, Chen Chen³, Frederick W Unverzagt⁵, Ann M Hake⁶, Yinlong Jin³, Sujuan Gao⁷

Affiliations

¹ China CDC Key Laboratory of Environment and Population Health, National Institute of Environmental Health, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 100050, China; School of Public Health, Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang 550025, China.
² China CDC Key Laboratory of Environment and Population Health, National Institute of Environmental Health, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 100050, China. Electronic address: suliqin@nieh.chinacdc.cn.
³ China CDC Key Laboratory of Environment and Population Health, National Institute of Environmental Health, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 100050, China.
⁴ Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310052, China.
⁵ Department of Psychiatry, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA.
⁶ Department of Neurology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA.
⁷ Department of Biostatistics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202-2872, USA.

PMID: 36201939
DOI: 10.1016/j.jtemb.2022.127078

Abstract

Background and aims: Earlier studies have reported inconsistent association between selenium (Se) and homocysteine (Hcy) levels, while no evidence could be found from Chinese population. To fill this gap, we investigated the association between blood Se and hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy) of rural elderly population in China.

Methods: A cross-sectional study on 1823 participants aged 65 and older from four Chinese rural counties was carried out in this study. Whole blood Se and serum Hcy concentrations were measured in fasting blood samples. Analysis of covariance and restricted cubic spline models were used to examine the association between Se and Hcy levels. Logistic regression models were used to evaluate the risk of prevalent HHcy among four Se quartile groups after adjusting for covariates.

Results: For this sample, the mean blood Se concentration was 156.34 (74.65) μg/L and the mean serum Hcy concentration was 17.25 (8.42) μmol/L. A significant non-linear relationship was found between blood Se and serum Hcy, the association was inverse when blood Se was less than 97.404 μg/L and greater than 156.919 μg/L. Participants in the top three blood Se quartile groups had significantly lower risk of prevalent HHcy compared with the lowest quartile group. When defined as Hcy> 10 μmol/L, the odds ratios and 95% confidence interval of HHcy were 0.600 (0.390, 0.924), 0.616 (0.398, 0.951) and 0.479 (0.314, 0.732) for Q2, Q3, and Q4 Se quartile groups compared with the Q1 group, respectively. When defined as Hcy≥ 15 μmol/L, the odds ratios and 95% confidence interval of HHcy were 0.833 (0.633, 1.098) and 0.827 (0.626, 1.092), 0.647 (0.489, 0.857) for Q2, Q3, and Q4 Se quartile groups compared with Q1 group.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that higher blood Se level could be a protective factor for HHcy in the elderly.

Keywords: Blood selenium; Elderly Chinese; Homocysteine; Hyperhomocysteinemia; Risk assessment.

MeSH terms

Aged
China / epidemiology
Cross-Sectional Studies
Humans
Selenium*

Substances

Selenium