Front Public Health. 2024 Oct 17;12:1439034. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1439034. eCollection 2024.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the association between antimony (Sb) exposure and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels in adolescents.
METHODS: A cross-sectional study of 751 adolescents aged 12-19 years was conducted via the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES, 2013-2016). Survey-weighted linear regression and restricted cubic spline (RCS) analyses were applied to evaluate the relationship of urinary Sb exposure with HbA1c.
RESULTS: A significant relationship was observed between urinary Sb concentrations and HbA1c levels (percent change: 0.93; 95% CI: 0.42, 1.45) after full adjustment. After converting urinary Sb levels to a categorical variable by tertiles (T1-T3), the highest quantile was associated with a significant increase in HbA1c (percent change: 1.45; 95% CI: 0.38, 2.53) compared to T1. The RCS models showed a monotonically increasing relationship of urinary Sb with HbA1c. Subgroup analyses revealed a sex-specific relationship between urinary Sb exposure and HbA1c with a significant positive association in males and a non-significant positive association in females. Sensitivity analyses further confirmed the relationship between urinary Sb and HbA1c, even after excluding participants who were overweight or obese (percent change: 1.58%, 95% CI: 0.88, 2.28) and those with serum cotinine levels ≥ 1 ng/mL (percent change: 1.14%, 95% CI: 0.49, 1.80).
CONCLUSION: Our findings indicated that increased Sb exposure may correlate with higher HbA1c levels, especially in male adolescents. More studies are needed to further explore and validate the potential mechanisms.
PMID:39484344 | PMC:PMC11524935 | DOI:10.3389/fpubh.2024.1439034