engleski

Human hair as a long term biological indicator for assesing strontium nutritional status

Strontium (Sr) is a bone seeking trace element that ciosely parallels calcium metabolism. At the present, there is no available long-term biological indicator for assessing the human Sr nutritional status. In this article, we have presented a novel concept on how to assess the human strontium nutritional status by studying its frequency distribution in the hair and vvhole blood. In this prospective, observational, cross- sectional, and exploratory epidemiological study, we analyzed hair Sr (S'H) in 311 apparently healthy adult Croatians (123 men, 188 women) ; among them, whole blood strontium (SrWB) was detected in 142 women and 89 men. Hair and WB sam ples vvere analyzed for strontium by the inductively coupied mass plasma spectrometry (ICP MS). The natura! frequency distribution of hair strontium obeyed the povver law so that the data were analyzed by fitting the logistic bioassay sigmoid curve (ogive) of the median derivatives. Women have accumulated more SrH than men (median men 0.867 pg-g1 vs. median women 3, 120 pgg1). The normal physiological response range covered by the linear part of the sigmoid curve was 0.418 - 2, 950 pg-g"1 for men and 0.846 - 71260 pg-g1 for women. Values below that linear range were considered to denote low Sr nutritional status, whereas values above that range would indicate excessive dietary strontium exposure. The long term biological indicator of hair strontium (SrH) is incommensurable with that of the short term biological indicator of the whole blood strontium (SrWB). On the average, women have aboutthreetimes more strontium in their hair than men, regardless of the age. Analysis of the hair strontium frequency distribution is a valuable long term biological indicator in assessing the population strontium nutritional status.

strontium nutritional status ; hair ; long term biological indicator ; women ; men ; age

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