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. 2022 Jul 18;19(14):8745.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19148745.

The Association between Blood Concentrations of PCDD/DFs, DL-PCBs and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Thyroid Cancer in South Korea

SuHyun Lee  1   2 , YoungWook Lim  3 , YounSeok Kang  4 , KeumJi Jung  1 , SunHa Jee  1   2
Affiliations

The Association between Blood Concentrations of PCDD/DFs, DL-PCBs and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Thyroid Cancer in South Korea

SuHyun Lee et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Background and objectives: Epidemiological studies have inconsistently shown an association between dioxin and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and cancer. This study aims to examine the effects of blood concentration of dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (DL-PCBs) and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/DFs) on T2DM and thyroid cancer.

Methods: We conducted a nested case-control study within the Korean cancer prevention study-II (KCPS-II) consisting of 15 thyroid cancer cases, 30 T2DM cases, and 55 controls. A total of 500 samples were used in 100 pooling samples. An average value of a pooled sample was calculated weighted by the blood volume of each sample.

Results: The study population included 100 participants from the KCPS-II (median (IQR) baseline age, 54.06 [21.04] years; 48 women). The toxic equivalents of PCDD/DFs showed a significant positive association with T2DM and thyroid cancer, after adjustments for potential confounders (T2DM ORs = 1.23; 95% CI = 1.05-1.43; thyroid cancer ORs = 1.34; 95% CI = 1.12-1.61).

Conclusion: In this study, both T2DM and thyroid cancer were associated with the blood concentrations of PCDD/DFs. The association between PCDD/DFs and T2D was found among women but not among men. Our findings suggest that further biochemical in vivo research and epidemiologic studies are needed to clarify the association between dioxins concentrations and diseases.

Keywords: PCDD; PCDFs; dioxin-like PCBs; epidemiology; thyroid cancer; type 2 diabetes mellitus.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Serum concentrations for PCDD/DFs, DL-PCBs of the study group. Violin plots show differences in blood of concentrations for DL_PCBs (A), PCDD/DFs (B), total dioxins (C) at the controls group (n = 55), type 2 diabetes (n = 30) or thyroid cancer (n = 15). The line in the white box represents the median. The width of the shape represents blood concentration density, and the length illustrates the range of the blood concentration.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Odds Ratios of blood concentrations of PCDD/DFs, DL-PCBs (pgTEQ/g_lipid) and Type 2 Diabetes mellitus. OR, odds ratio; CI, confidence interval; Model 1: Adjusted for age and sex; Model 2: Adjusted for the model 1 variables, body mass index, systolic blood pressure and high-density lipoprotein. Marked red based on statistically significant results.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Odds Ratios of blood concentrations of PCDD/DFs, DL-PCBs (pgTEQ/g_lipid) and Thyroid Cancer. OR, odds ratio; CI, confidence interval. Model 1: Adjusted for age and sex; Model 2: Adjusted for the model 1 variables and body mass index; Model 3: Adjusted for the model 2 variables and thyroid stimulating hormone. Marked red based on statistically significant results.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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