Volume 75, January 2023, 127078Highlights•

First study on the association between blood Se and HHcy in older Chinese adults.

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A non-linear relationship between blood Se and serum Hcy was observed.

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Higher Se levels were associated with lower prevalence risk of HHcy.

AbstractBackground and aims

Earlier studies have reported inconsistent association between selenium (Se) and homocysteine (Hcy) levels, while no evidence could be found from Chinese population. To fill this gap, we investigated the association between blood Se and hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy) of rural elderly population in China.

Methods

A cross-sectional study on 1823 participants aged 65 and older from four Chinese rural counties was carried out in this study. Whole blood Se and serum Hcy concentrations were measured in fasting blood samples. Analysis of covariance and restricted cubic spline models were used to examine the association between Se and Hcy levels. Logistic regression models were used to evaluate the risk of prevalent HHcy among four Se quartile groups after adjusting for covariates.

Results

For this sample, the mean blood Se concentration was 156.34 (74.65) μg/L and the mean serum Hcy concentration was 17.25 (8.42) μmol/L. A significant non-linear relationship was found between blood Se and serum Hcy, the association was inverse when blood Se was less than 97.404 μg/L and greater than 156.919 μg/L. Participants in the top three blood Se quartile groups had significantly lower risk of prevalent HHcy compared with the lowest quartile group. When defined as Hcy> 10 μmol/L, the odds ratios and 95% confidence interval of HHcy were 0.600 (0.390, 0.924), 0.616 (0.398, 0.951) and 0.479 (0.314, 0.732) for Q2, Q3, and Q4 Se quartile groups compared with the Q1 group, respectively. When defined as Hcy≥ 15 μmol/L, the odds ratios and 95% confidence interval of HHcy were 0.833 (0.633, 1.098) and 0.827 (0.626, 1.092), 0.647 (0.489, 0.857) for Q2, Q3, and Q4 Se quartile groups compared with Q1 group.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that higher blood Se level could be a protective factor for HHcy in the elderly.

Keywords

Blood selenium

Homocysteine

Hyperhomocysteinemia

Elderly Chinese

Risk assessment

AbbreviationsCardiovascular disease

CVD

Inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry

ICP-MS

Randomized controlled trials

RCTs

Analysis of variance

ANOVA

Analysis of convariance

ANCOVA

Metabolism of methionine

Met

Betaine-Hcy methyltransferase

BHMT

Cystathionine synthase

CBS

View Abstract

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