Environmental Lead and Cadmium Exposure and Metabolic Syndrome in Women

Abstract

Lead and cadmium are presented as environmental pollutants and they can cause various kinds of detrimental health effects. Metabolic syndrome (MS) has been reported as one of the health risks related to chronic exposure to heavy metals. The aim of this study was to determine the association between blood lead and cadmium levels and MS risks in a cross- sectional study in Thai women (n= 779) with mean age of 47.3 years (range 35-67). Results showed that there were significant differences in various biochemical parameters, blood metal levels, and blood pressure between individuals with and without MS. The geometric means of blood lead (2.63 μg/dL) and cadmium (1.07 μg/L) levels in MS group were significantly higher than those without MS (2.17 μg/dL and 0.89 μg/L, respectively; p <0.05). In addition, the prevalence of MS showed significantly increasing trend with lead tertile and combination of lead and cadmium tertiles. Adjusting for age, BMI, alcohol consumption, total cholesterol and creatinine, cadmium and lead tertiles were associated with increased odds ratio of MS and its components. These findings also supported that environmental exposure to lead and cadmium in general population may lead to the increased risk for development of MS in women. The reduced contamination of both metals in environment is an important concern and additional biomarkers of metal induced alteration in MS should be further studied.