Association of the dietary copper intake with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality: A prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Copper (Cu) is a component that performs a crucial role in the normal function and development of the human body. Nonetheless, it is still largely unclear how Cu consumption in the diet relates to the risk for all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. METHODS: Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2001–2018 were used to conduct a prospective cohort study of individuals between the ages of 20 years and above. Regression coefficients and 95% confidence intervals for the link between dietary Cu consumption and all-cause and cardiovascular-related mortality were computed utilizing univariate and multivariate-adjusted Cox proportional hazards models. RESULTS: A total of 197.9 million non-institutionalized American citizens were represented by the NHANES’s 39,784 participants. The link between Cu in the diet and all-cause mortality was discovered to be non-linear in our restricted cubic spline regression models. When comparing the highest with the lowest quartile of Cu consumption in the diet, the weighted multivariate hazard ratios for all-cause mortality were 0.91 (0.83–0.99) for Q2, 0.88 (0.80–0.97) for Q3, and 0.86 (0.76–0.98) for Q4 (P for trend = 0.017). An identical trend was observed for cardiovascular mortality, but the association is not significant. CONCLUSION: The most important discovery was that higher dietary Cu consumption was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality. This trend was also consistent with that of cardiovascular-related mortality, but the association is not significant.