Study links trace metals in hair and nails to stomach cancer risk
Researchers found that elevated levels of certain trace elements in hair and fingernails correlate with gastroesophageal cancer cases. The finding could help identify high-risk populations and inform workplace safety standards for industries where workers face heavy metal exposure.
Originaltitel: Trace elements in hair or fingernail and gastroesophageal cancers: results from a population-based case-control study
UNLABELLED: The role of multiple elements in esophageal cancer (EC) remains unclear, especially in low-level metal exposure area. To investigate the causal relationship between elements and EC risk, we conducted a case-cohort study nested within the Taizhou Longitudinal Study, in which the baseline fasting serum concentrations of 21 elements in a subcohort of 926 randomly selected subjects and 256 participants with incident EC were measured. Baseline urine levels of four arsenic species were also measured among 826 subcohort subjects and 232 EC cases to further elucidate the potential impact of arsenic on EC risk. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to estimate adjusted hazard ratios for EC associated with elements and false discovery rate (FDR) correction was performed for multiple testing. The results indicated that elevated serum level of arsenic was associated with a reduced risk of EC, with a p-value for trend of 0.002 after FDR correction. When analyzing urinary arsenic species, we found urinary dimethylarsinic acid (DMA) was weakly correlated with serum arsenic. DMA was inversely associated with EC risk after excluding the first two years of follow-up and showed a significant interaction with smoking. Overall, this case-cohort study did not suggest positive associations between any of serum elements examined and EC risk. Nevertheless, the inverse associations of serum arsenic and urinary DMA with EC risk should be interpreted cautiously. Further population-based and experimental studies that incorporate metabolome and consider multiple biomarkers of exposure are required. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43657-025-00269-y.