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Cadmium Exposure and Blood Telomere Length in Female University Students in Japan

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Abstract

Cadmium is a toxic metal found ubiquitously throughout the world. Our study evaluated whether cadmium exposure was associated with telomere length in 73 female university students. Determination of telomere length was performed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction using DNA in blood. Urinary cadmium concentration was measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The students’ physiological attributes and lifestyle were surveyed by means of a self-administered questionnaire. The geometric mean of urinary cadmium concentration was 0.312 μg/g creatinine, which was lower than the levels previously reported for Japan. Urinary cadmium concentration was not significantly associated with telomere length, though the exposure level of the present subjects was similar to that of previous study subjects which found significantly negative associations. It is possible that other factors affected telomere length in this study population.

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Abbreviations

BMI:

Body mass index

ICP-MS:

Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

PCR:

Polymerase chain reaction

T/S ratio:

Telomere/single copy gene ratio

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Acknowledgements

We thank the subjects of this study for their cooperation, and Ms. Yoko Nakamura, Faculty of Life Sciences, Toyo University, for helping with the preparation of the collection of samples.

Funding

This work was funded by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (grant number 16H05254).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Ecology, School of International Health, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Yuki Mizuno & Shoko Konishi

  2. Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle, USA

    Shoko Konishi

  3. Department of Nursing, Tokyo Healthcare University, Tokyo, Japan

    Hideki Imai

  4. National Environmental Research and Training Institute, Tokorozawa City, Saitama, Japan

    Eiji Fujimori

  5. Faculty of Life Sciences, Toyo University, 1-1-1 Izumino, Itakura, Ora, Gunma, 374-0193, Japan

    Nobuhiko Kojima & Jun Yoshinaga

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  1. Yuki Mizuno
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  2. Shoko Konishi
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  3. Hideki Imai
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  4. Eiji Fujimori
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  5. Nobuhiko Kojima
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  6. Jun Yoshinaga
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jun Yoshinaga.

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Conflict of Interest

Shoko Konishi and Jun Yoshinaga have received research grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Yuki Mizuno, Eiji Fujimori, Nobuhiko Kojima and Hideki Imai declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Toyo University, Tokyo Healthcare University, and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tokyo in Japan.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Mizuno, Y., Konishi, S., Imai, H. et al. Cadmium Exposure and Blood Telomere Length in Female University Students in Japan. Biol Trace Elem Res 192, 98–105 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-019-1656-3

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