Association between blood cadmium levels and lung function in the Korean adults

摘要

Background High levels of cadmium exposure are known to cause emphysema in occupationally exposed workers, but little has been reported to date on the association between chronic environmental cadmium exposure and pulmonary function Aims We examined the association between pulmonary function and blood cadmium level in adults. Methods This cross-sectional study evaluated adult participants from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) for 2008-2011. Multiple linear regression was conducted to investigate the association between blood cadmium concentration and the pulmonary function tests such as forced vital capacity(FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 sec(FEVl) and ratio of FEV1 to FVC(FEV1/FVC) adjusting for age, sex, smoking status and passive smoking. Subjects were stratified into quartiles by their cumulative cadmium exposure rank. We estimated the multivariate-adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for obstructive lung disease (defined as FEVl/FVC＜0.7) using logistic regression models with the first quartile of cadmium level as the reference group. Results Total number of the subjects in the analysis was 4,009. The blood cadmium concentrations were significantly associated with pulmonary function test (FVC, beta=-2.066, P-value=0.031; FEV1, beta=-2.810, P-value=0.0036; FEV1/FVC, beta=-0.006, P-value=0.001). As the cadmium levels approached higher quartiles, the ORs for an obstructive lung disease was increased significantly, espatially at smoker(highest OR=4.496, 95% CI 1.737-11.634). Conclusions Environmental cadmium exposures are associated with obstructive lung disease in Korean adults and have synergistic effect on pulmonary functions with smoking.