Plasma Metallothionein Antibody, Urinary Cadmium, and Renal Dysfunction in a Chinese Type 2 Diabetic Population
- Liang Chen, PHD1,
- Lijian Lei, PHD1,
- Taiyi Jin, MD, PHD12,
- Monica Nordberg, PHD3 and
- Gunnar F. Nordberg, MD, PHD2
- 1Department of Occupational Health, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
- 2Environmental Medicine, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
- 3Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
- Address correspondence and reprint requests to Prof. Taiyi Jin, MD, PhD, Department of Occupational Health, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China. E-mail: tyjin{at}shmu.edu.cn
Abstract
OBJECTIVE—It has been reported that diabetes may increase the risk of cadmium-induced kidney damage. The presence of metallothionein antibody (MT-Ab) increased the susceptibility for tubular damage among cadmium workers. This study focused on the relationships between levels of MT-Ab, urinary cadmium, and kidney function in a Chinese type 2 diabetic population.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—A cross-sectional study was performed on 229 type 2 diabetic patients (92 men and 137 women) who were recruited from two community centers in one district of Shanghai City in China. Information was obtained from interviews, health records, and blood and urine samples.
RESULTS—Levels of the tubular biomarker β2-microglobulin increased significantly when the levels of MT-Ab and urinary cadmium were elevated in male and female subjects; in contrast, the levels of urinary albumin, a glomerular biomarker, did not display such a pattern. After adjusting for potential confounding covariates, logistic regression showed that the odds ratios (ORs) of tubular dysfunction increased upon 1) increasing the MT-Ab concentration from a low to high level (OR 5.56 [95% CI 2.25–13.73]) and 2) increasing the level of urinary cadmium from <1 to ≥1 μg/g creatinine (3.34 [1.17–9.53]); the OR of patients currently smoking was 3.51 (1.14–10.80) relative to that of those who had never smoked.
CONCLUSIONS—This study proves that the presence of MT-Ab can potentiate tubular dysfunction among diabetic subjects and that patients with high MT-Ab levels are more prone to development of tubular damage.
Footnotes
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L.C. and L.L contributed equally to this work.
A table elsewhere in this issue shows conventional and Système International (SI) units and conversion factors for many substances.
The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 U.S.C Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
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- Accepted August 28, 2006.
- Received May 16, 2006.
- DIABETES CARE
