Gender Difference in the Associations among Heavy Metals with Red Blood Cell Hemogram

Chao-Hsin Huang, Chih-Wen Wang, Huang-Chi Chen, Hung-Pin Tu, Szu-Chia Chen, Chih-Hsing Hung and Chao-Hung Kuo
Additional contact information
Chao-Hsin Huang: Department of Post Baccalaureate Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung 807, Taiwan
Chih-Wen Wang: Department of Internal Medicine, Kaohsiung Municipal Siaogang Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung 812, Taiwan
Huang-Chi Chen: Department of Internal Medicine, Kaohsiung Municipal Siaogang Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung 812, Taiwan
Hung-Pin Tu: Department of Public Health and Environmental Medicine, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung 807, Taiwan
Szu-Chia Chen: Department of Internal Medicine, Kaohsiung Municipal Siaogang Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung 812, Taiwan
Chih-Hsing Hung: Research Center for Environmental Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung 807, Taiwan
Chao-Hung Kuo: Department of Internal Medicine, Kaohsiung Municipal Siaogang Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung 812, Taiwan

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 19, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: This study aimed to investigate gender differences in the association between heavy metals and hemograms including hemoglobin (Hgb), mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC). A health survey of 2447 participants was conducted in southern Taiwan between June 2016 and September 2018. Seven heavy metals were measured: blood lead (Pb), urine nickel (Ni), urine chromium (Cr), urine manganese, urine arsenic (As), urine copper and urine cadmium (Cd). The results show that in females, Pb and Ni were significantly negatively associated with Hgb. In addition, As and Cd were significantly positively, and Pb and Ni were significantly negatively, associated with MCV, in males and females, respectively. The interactions between gender and Ni and gender and Cd in MCV were statistically significant. Further, Pb, in males, and Pb, Ni and Cr, in females, were significantly negatively associated with MCHC. In conclusion, in females, associations of red blood cell (RBC) hemograms with heavy metals such as Pb and Ni were found. In males, heavy metals such as Pb, As and Cd were found to associate with RBC hemograms. Further research is warranted to discuss the mechanism behind these associations.

Keywords: heavy metal; hemoglobin; mean corpuscular volume; mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/1/189/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/1/189/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2021:i:1:p:189-:d:710826

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().