Introduction: early exposure to cadmium toxic metal has been suggested to be associated with reduced infants/children growth; nevertheless, the available evidence is contradictory.
Objective: this meta-analysis aimed to examine the association of cadmium exposure through biological samples to growth measurements of infants/children, including body weight, height, body mass index (BMI), BMI-for-age (BMI Z-score), weight-for-age (WAZ), height-for-age (HAZ), and weight-for-height (WHZ) z-scores.
Methods: a systematic search in PubMed and Scopus was implemented to obtain the related studies. The standardized beta coefficients (β) and 95 % confidence intervals (95 % CI) were used as effect sizes to test the associations using the random effects analysis.
Results: a total of 15 studies with 6,181 participants were included in the meta-analysis. In the overall analysis, pooled analysis of available data revealed that cadmium exposure was inversely linked to height (β = -0.06, 95 % CI = -0.12 to -0.01) and WAZ (β = -0.01, 95 % CI = -0.02 to -0.003). These relationships were also supported by prospective cohort studies and urinary cadmium exposure. In the stratified analysis, cadmium exposure was negatively linked to the weight of children in prospective cohort studies, in studies that assessed urinary cadmium exposure. No significant association was detected between cadmium exposure and BMI, BMI Z-score, WHZ, and HAZ in the overall and subgroup analyses.
Conclusions: this meta-analysis emphasized the importance of cadmium exposure as a risk factor for growth failure in infants/children.