Associations between exposure to cadmium, lead, mercury and mixtures and women’s infertility and long-term amenorrhea

Table 6 Medians and log transformed means of blood heavy metal concentrations and heavy metal mixture scores in women with normal menstruation and long-term amenorrhea

Metal	Total Sample	Long-term amenorrhea¹	Menstruating²	p-Value³
Lead, median, IQR (ug / dL)	0.53 (0.38-0.78)	0.52 (0.35-0.71)	0.53 (0.38-0.78)	0.72
Log Transformed Lead, Mean, SE	-0.58 ± 0.02	-0.62 ± 0.09	-0.57 ± 0.02	0.60
Cadmium, median, IQR (ug / L)	0.25 (0.16-0.44)	0.23 (0.12-0.41)	0.26 (0.16-0.44)	0.99
Log Transformed Cadmium, Mean, SE	-1.25 ± 0.03	-1.37 ± 0.11	-1.25 ± 0.03	0.33
Mercury, median, IQR (ug / L)	0.61 (0.33-1.26)	0.65 (0.37-1.01)	0.61 (0.32-1.29)	0.004
Log Transformed Mercury, Mean, SE	-0.37 ± 0.03	-0.38 ± 0.06	-0.37 ± 0.03	0.84
Mixed Metal, median, IQR	2.97 (2.10 – 4.34)	2.91 (1.84 – 3.82)	2.97 (2.10 – 4.37)	0.74
Log Transformed Mix, Mean, SE	1.13 ± 0.02	1.08 ± 0.08	1.13 ± 0.02	0.57

Blood metal distributions were skewed. Therefore, we presented the median and IQR (25^th and 75^th percentile) and the mean of the Log Transformed blood metal levels. These results are weighted to account for NHANES survey design
¹ ‘Long-term amenorrhea’ answered “no” to the question “Have you had at least one menstrual period in the past 12 months? (Please do not include bleedings caused by medical conditions, hormone therapy, or surgeries.)” AND answered “Other” or “Don’t know” to the question “What is the reason that you have not had a period in the past 12 months?”
² ‘Menstruating’ if answered “Yes” to the question “Have you had at least one menstrual period in the past 12 months? (Please do not include bleedings caused by medical conditions, hormone therapy, or surgeries.)”
³ P-Values represent a t test to determine if there is a significant difference between the means of long-term amenorrhea vs. menstruating

ISSN: 2049-3258