Relationships between urinary antimony concentrations and depressive symptoms in adults

Antimony is widely used in industrial production. The general population may be exposed to long-term low-dose antimony, and there are no studies on antimony and depression symptoms. This study aims to explore the relationships between urinary antimony concentrations and depressive symptoms in adults.

We conducted a cross-sectional study using data from U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2007-2016 for urinary antimony (N = 8538). Depressive symptoms were assessed through Patient's Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). In order to determine the relationships between urinary antimony concentrations and depressive symptoms, binary logistic regression model and restricted cubic spline were used. Dominance analysis was used to explore the relative importance between variables associated with depressive symptoms.

There was a significant positive relationship between urinary antimony concentrations and depressive symptoms in the general population, and OR with 95% CI was 1.72 (1.15, 2.60). This relationship also occurred in participants without disease status, and OR with 95% CI was 2.05 (1.10, 3.82). After stratified gender, the urinary antimony concentrations were positively correlated with depressive symptoms in the highest tertiles of female participants, and OR with 95% CI was 1.74 (1.06, 2.86). After adjusted urinary lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury as covariates, the result was still statistically significant, and OR with 95% CI was 1.83 (1.23, 2.72). Restricted cubic spline showed a nonlinear positive relationship between urinary antimony and depressive symptoms. Based on the result of dominance analysis, the relative importance of urinary antimony concentration accounted for 3.58%.

This study indicated that urinary antimony was positively related to depressive symptoms, especially in female.