Association of Blood Heavy Metal Concentrations with Angiographic Coronary Artery Disease in a Consecutive Single-Center Cardiac Catheterization Cohort
- 1Department of Cardiology, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL USA
- 2Department of Medicine, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL USA
- 3School of Health Sciences, Purdue University, Lafayette, IN USA
Abstract
Environmental heavy metal exposure is increasingly recognized as a potentially important but underappreciated contributor to cardiovascular disease, yet its relationship to directly observed coronary artery disease (CAD) remains poorly defined. In this single-center cohort of 52 consecutive adults undergoing cardiac catheterization at an urban Chicago tertiary care center, we paired elemental exposure profiles with direct angiographic assessment in a racially diverse, socioeconomically vulnerable population. While no individual metal independently explained obstructive CAD, circulating metal exposure patterns were more revealing: Bayesian Kernel Machine Regression demonstrated that increasing overall metal burden was associated with worse coronary phenotypes, suggesting that environmental exposures may act collectively rather than in isolation. Lead and mercury emerged as the strongest contributors and were enriched relative to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) reference populations. Taken together, these findings offer early but meaningful evidence that environmental toxicant burden may represent an underrecognized layer of cardiovascular risk, particularly in urban communities where industrial history, aging infrastructure, and socioeconomic disadvantage intersect. This work highlights the importance of viewing cardiovascular disease not only through the lens of traditional risk factors, but also through the environments in which patients live.
Graphical Abstract:
Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12012-026-10214-8.
Related
- Association of NT-proBNP/LVEF with angiographic coronary disease burden in acute myocardial infarction: a retrospective study with machine learning analyses
- Evaluation of an Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Algorithm to Enhance Angiographic Coronary Visibility in Morbid Obesity: A Retrospective Observational Study
- Coronary Drug-Coated Balloons as Brief-Contact Drug-Delivery Platforms: Engineering, Tissue Pharmacokinetics, and Angiographic/Imaging Response
- Automated Identification of Complex Percutaneous Coronary Intervention from Cardiac Catheterization Reports Using Large Language Models
- Suspected atrioesophageal fistula complicated by coronary air embolism after catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation: direct angiographic visualization and catheter aspiration in a case report
BibTeX
@article{taylor2026association,
title = {{Association of Blood Heavy Metal Concentrations with Angiographic Coronary Artery Disease in a Consecutive Single-Center Cardiac Catheterization Cohort}},
author = {Jeffrey D. Taylor and Pal Shah and Aaron Specht and Maitri Shah and Melissa Duckett and Christine Locquiao and Ken Lizama and Edward Salem and Hannah McKown and Peter Glynn and Mladen I. Vidovich},
journal = {Cardiovascular Toxicology},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1007/s12012-026-10214-8},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s12012-026-10214-8},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Association of Blood Heavy Metal Concentrations with Angiographic Coronary Artery Disease in a Consecutive Single-Center Cardiac Catheterization Cohort
AU - Jeffrey D. Taylor
AU - Pal Shah
AU - Aaron Specht
AU - Maitri Shah
AU - Melissa Duckett
AU - Christine Locquiao
AU - Ken Lizama
AU - Edward Salem
AU - Hannah McKown
AU - Peter Glynn
AU - Mladen I. Vidovich
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/27
JO - Cardiovascular Toxicology
DO - 10.1007/s12012-026-10214-8
UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s12012-026-10214-8
AB - Environmental heavy metal exposure is increasingly recognized as a potentially important but underappreciated contributor to cardiovascular disease, yet its relationship to directly observed coronary artery disease (CAD) remains poorly defined. In this single-center cohort of 52 consecutive adults undergoing cardiac catheterization at an urban Chicago tertiary care center, we paired elemental exposure profiles with direct angiographic assessment in a racially diverse, socioeconomically vulnerable population. While no individual metal independently explained obstructive CAD, circulating metal exposure patterns were more revealing: Bayesian Kernel Machine Regression demonstrated that increasing overall metal burden was associated with worse coronary phenotypes, suggesting that environmental exposures may act collectively rather than in isolation. Lead and mercury emerged as the strongest contributors and were enriched relative to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) reference populations. Taken together, these findings offer early but meaningful evidence that environmental toxicant burden may represent an underrecognized layer of cardiovascular risk, particularly in urban communities where industrial history, aging infrastructure, and socioeconomic disadvantage intersect. This work highlights the importance of viewing cardiovascular disease not only through the lens of traditional risk factors, but also through the environments in which patients live. Graphical Abstract: Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12012-026-10214-8.
SN - 1530-7905
SN - 1559-0259
ER -