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IRON STATUS AS A COVARIATE IN METHYLMERCURY-ASSOCIATED NEUROTOXICITY RISK
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Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto Fernandes Figueira. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil. / Harvard School of Public Health. Department of Environmental Health. Boston, MA, USA.
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sergio Arouca. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil.
Harvard School of Public Health. Department of Environmental Health. Boston, MA, USA / University of Southern Denmark. Institute of Public Health. Odense C, Denmark.
Harvard School of Public Health. Department of Environmental Health. Boston, MA, USA.
Universidade Federal de Rondônia. Laboratório de Biogeoquímica Ambiental Wolfgang Christian Pfeiffer. Porto Velho, RO, Brasil.
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sergio Arouca. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil.
Harvard School of Public Health. Department of Environmental Health. Boston, MA, USA / University of Southern Denmark. Institute of Public Health. Odense C, Denmark.
Harvard School of Public Health. Department of Environmental Health. Boston, MA, USA.
Universidade Federal de Rondônia. Laboratório de Biogeoquímica Ambiental Wolfgang Christian Pfeiffer. Porto Velho, RO, Brasil.
Abstract
Intrauterine methylmercury exposure and prenatal iron deficiency negatively affect offspring’s brain development. Since fish is a major source of both methylmercury and iron, occurrence of negative confounding may affect the interpretation of studies concerning cognition. We assessed relationships between methylmercury exposure and iron-status in childbearing females from a population naturally exposed to methylmercury through fish intake (Amazon). We concluded a census (refuse <20%) collecting samples from 274 healthy females (12–49 years) for hair-mercury determination and assessed iron-status through red cell tests and determination of serum ferritin and iron. Reactive C protein and thyroid hormones was used for excluding inflammation and severe thyroid dysfunctions that could affect results. We assessed the association between iron-status and hair-mercury by bivariate correlation analysis and also by different multivariate models: linear regression (to check trends); hierarchical agglomerative clustering method (groups of variables correlated with each other); and factor analysis (to examine redundancy or duplication from a set of correlated variables). Hair-mercury correlated weakly with mean corpuscular volume (r = .141; P = .020) and corpuscular hemoglobin (r = .132; .029), but not with the best biomarker of iron-status, ferritin (r = .037; P = .545). In the linear regression analysis, methylmercury exposure showed weak association with age-adjusted ferritin; age had a significant coefficient (Beta = .015; 95% CI: .003–.027; P = .016) but ferritin did not (Beta = .034; 95% CI: .147 to .216; P = .711). In the hierarchical agglomerative clustering method, hair-mercury and iron-status showed the smallest similarities. Regarding factor analysis, iron-status and hair-mercury loaded different uncorrelated components. We concluded that iron-status and methylmercury exposure probably occur in an independent way.
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