Correlation of volatile organic chemical exposure with uric acid metabolism among US population: A cross-sectional study from NHANES program

Volatile organic chemicals (VOC) have been identified as hazardous pollutants impairing human health. While whether the VOC exposure was associated with hyperuricemia is yet clarified. All the data was acquired from 6 survey cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) program (2005-2006, 2011-2012, 2013-2014, 2015-2016, 2017-2018, 2017-2020). Hyperuricemia was defined as a serum uric acid (SUA) concentration exceeding 7 mg/mL in men or 6 mg/mL in women. Three quantile logistic regression models with varied covariates were developed to analyze the correlation between hyperuricemia and volatile organic chemical metabolites (VOCs) in urine, and three quantile linear regression models were used for examining the correlation between VOCs and SUA. N-acetyl-S-(2-carboxyethyl)-l-cysteine (CEMA), N-acetyl-S-(3,4-dihydroxybutyl)-l-cysteine (DHBM), and phenylglyoxylic acid (PHGA) were identified to associated positively with increased hyperuricemia risk and uric acid level. Meanwhile, the weighted quantile sum (WQS) model suggested a positive association between VOCs exposure and hyperuricemia. These data indicate that VOC exposure potentially increases hyperuricemia risk, necessitating policies to mitigate VOC exposure.