Correlating metal exposures and dietary habits with hyperuricemia in a large urban elderly cohort by artificial...

Epidemiological studies using conventional statistical methods have reported an association between individual metal exposure and hyperuricemia (HUA). There is also evidence that diet may influence HUA development, although the available data are inconsistent. We therefore used an elastic net regression (ENR) model to screen the usefulness of various environmental and dietary factors as predictors of HUA in a large sample cohort. This study included 6217 subjects drawn from the Shenzhen Aging Related Disorder Cohort. We obtained information on the subjects' dietary habits via face-to-face interviews and used inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to measure the urinary concentrations of 24 metals to which elderly persons in large urban areas may be exposed. An elastic net regression (ENR) model was generated to screen the utility of the metals and dietary factors as predictors of HUA, and we demonstrated the superiority of the ENR model by comparing it to a traditional logistic regression model. The identified predictors were used to create a clinically usable nomogram for identifying patients at risk of developing HUA. The area under curve (AUC) value of the final model was 0.692 for the training set and 0.706 for the test set. Important predictors of HUA were Zn, As, V, and Fe as well as consumption of wheat, beans, and rice; the corresponding estimated odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were 1.091 (0.932,1.251), 1.190 (1.093,1.286), 0.924 (0.793,1.055), 0.704 (0.626,0.781), 0.998 (0.996,1.001), 0.993 (0.989,0.998), and 1.001 (0.998,1.002), respectively. In contrast to previous studies, we found that both urinary metal concentrations and dietary habits are important for predicting HUA risk. Exposure to specific metals and consumption of specific foods were identified as important predictors of HUA, indicating that the incidence of this disease could be reduced by reducing exposure to these metals and promoting improved dietary habits.