ABSTRACT
This study explores the association between phthalates and total vitamin D levels and the link between phthalates exposure and subclinical inflammation using monocyte percentage to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (MHR), utilizing three National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) survey cycles 2013-2018. This study is cross-sectional, utilizing one-time urine samples from randomly selected NHANES participants to assess phthalate metabolites. An inverse association between vitamin D and all Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) metabolites was found. The molar sum of DEHP metabolites was inversely associated with vitamin D (β −2.329; 95% CI −3.937,−0.720). An inverse association was observed between monocarboxynonyl phthalate and vitamin D (β −0.0278; 95% CI −0.0527,−0.00298). A similar relationship was found between monocarboxyoctyl phthalate and vitamin D (β −0.0160; 95% CI −0.0242,−0.00775). There was no association between phthalate metabolites and MHR. Stratified analysis showed that the association between phthalate metabolites and MHR may vary according to vitamin D status.
Acknowledgements
Authors acknowledge the Center for Disease, Atlanta USA for making the NHANES data available. Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library.
Disclosure statement
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Authors’ contributions
Elhassan Mahmoud: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
Abdalla Moustafa Elsayed: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
Muhammad Zain Kaleem: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
Hamad A. Alkorbi: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
Amgad M. Elshoeibi: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
Tawanda Chivese – Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
Susu M. Zughaier: Conceptualization, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – review & editing
Data availability statement
NHANES dataset was analyzed in this study, which is publicly available. It can be found here: https://wwwn.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/
Ethics statement
The NHANES survey data are publicly available and all records are de-identified.