The Associations Between Serum Vitamins and Carotenoids with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Results from the NHANES

Abstract

Purpose

Vitamins and carotenoids are essential in preventing and treating chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This study investigated the associations between serum vitamins, carotenoids, and COPD in adults aged ≥ 40 years in the United States.

Methods

We selected 3487 participants aged ≥40 from the NHANES (2017–2018) and used demographic analysis, sensitivity tests, and different weighted multivariate regression models to investigate the relationship between serum vitamins, carotenoids, and COPD.

Results

Subjects in the highest tertile of serum vitamin C, vitamin E (α-tocopherol), α-carotene, trans-β-carotene, and cis-β-carotene had a 50%, 35%, 51%, 54%, and 51% lower risk of COPD than those in the lowest tertile (P for trend: P=0.0005, <0.0001, 0.0054, 0.0066, and 0.0049). Unfortunately, no significant correlation was found for serum vitamin D levels.

Conclusion

Our analysis of nationally representative data from 3487 participants showed that serum levels of vitamin C, vitamin E (α-tocopherol), α-carotene, and β-carotene were negatively associated with the incidence of COPD in adults over 40 years of age in the US The findings highlighted the importance of antioxidant vitamins and carotenoids in respiratory health, while the data showed no significant correlation between vitamin D (25-OHD) and the incidence of COPD.

Keywords:

• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• morbidity
• serum vitamins
• serum carotenoids
• anti-oxidation

Data Sharing Statement

The study utilized publicly available datasets. These statistics can be accessed at www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/.

Ethics Statement

Due to the de-identification of participants in the NHANES database, all participants in NHANES have written and signed the informed consent, consistent with and deemed by the National Center for Health Statistics Institutional Review Board (NCHSIRB) (Protocol #2018-01 Protocol #2011-17), the IRB of the study hospital (Affiliated Hospital of Hangzhou Normal University) waived both IRB review and informed consent by the participants for the present study.

Acknowledgments

We thank the NHANES database for generously sharing a large amount of data. At the same time, we are also grateful to Yanling Xu for helping our team in this research.

Disclosure

The authors declare no conflict of interest.