Exposure to a Mixture of Metals and Growth Indicators in 6–11-Year-Old Children from the 2013–2016 NHANES

Lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), and fluoride (F) exposure during childhood is of concern owing to their toxicity. Also, evidence suggests that high and low exposure levels to manganese (Mn) and selenium (Se) during this vulnerable period are associated with an increased risk of adverse health effects. A reduced growth is associated with high Pb and F exposure; however, little is known about their impact on children’s body size, and there is a lack of consensus on the effects of Hg, Mn, and Se exposure on children’s anthropometric measures. This is particularly true for childhood metal co-exposures at levels relevant to the general population. We investigated the joint effects of exposure to a metal mixture (Pb, Mn, Hg, and Se in blood and F in plasma) on 6–11-year-old US children’s anthropometry ( n = 1634). Median F, Pb, Mn, Hg, and Se concentrations were 0.3 µmol/L, 0.5 µg/dL, 10.2 µg/L, 0.3 µg/L, and 178.0 µg/L, respectively. The joint effects of the five metals were modeled using Bayesian kernel machine and linear regressions. Pb and Mn showed opposite directions of associations with all outcome measured, where Pb was inversely associated with anthropometry. For body mass index and waist circumference, the effect estimates for Pb and Mn appeared stronger at high and low concentrations of the other metals of the mixture, respectively. Our findings suggest that metal co-exposures may influence children’s body mass and linear growth indicators, and that such relations may differ by the exposure levels of the components of the metal mixture.