The association between biomarkers of acrylamide and cancer mortality in U.S. adult population: Evidence from NHANES 2003-2014

The association between acrylamide (AA) and the development of cancer has been extensively discussed but the results remained controversial, especially in population studies. Large prospective epidemiological studies on the relationship of AA exposure with cancer mortality were still lacking. Therefore, we aimed to assess the association between AA biomarkers and cancer mortality in adult population from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003-2014. We followed 3717 participants for an average of 10.3 years. Cox regression models with multivariable adjustments were performed to determine the relationship of acrylamide hemoglobin adduct (HbAA) and glycidamide hemoglobin adduct (HbGA) with cancer mortality. Mediation analysis was conducted to demonstrate the mediated role of low-grade inflammation score (INFLA-score) in this correlation. Compared with the lowest quintile, participants with the highest quintile of HbAA, HbGA and HbAA+HbGA had increased cancer mortality risk, and the hazard ratios(HRs) were 2.07 (95%CI:1.04-4.14) for HbAA, 2.39 (95%CI:1.29-4.43) for HbGA and 2.48 (95%CI:1.28-4.80) for HbAA+HbGA, respectively. And there was a considerable non-linearity association between HbAA and cancer mortality (p (for non-linearity) = 0.0139). We further found that increased INFLA-score significantly mediated 71.67% in the effect of HbGA exposure on increased cancer mortality risk. This study demonstrates that hemoglobin biomarkers of AA are positively associated with cancer mortality in adult American population and INFLA-score plays a mediated role in this process. Our findings can raise public awareness of environmental and dietary exposure to acrylamide and remind people to refrain from smoking or having acrylamide-rich foods.