Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Nutr.
Sec. Clinical Nutrition
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2024.1387461
This article is part of the Research Topic Nutritional Approaches in Chronic Liver Diseases View all 16 articles

The association between serum vitamin A concentrations and virus hepatitis among U.S. adults from the NHANES database: a crosssectional study

Provisionally accepted
Maoxia Liu Maoxia Liu Jianlei Fu Jianlei Fu Zhang Xuepeng Zhang Xuepeng Qinyi Fu Qinyi Fu Yi Ji Yi Ji *Siyuan Chen Siyuan Chen *
  • West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    According to the present study, the relationship between vitamin A (VA) levels and hepatitis virus carriage has been unclear and controversial. This study aimed to determine the potential relationship between serum VA levels and viral hepatitis and to provide ideas for future clinical treatments. A cross-sectional study was performed using the 2005–2006 and 2017–2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) datasets. Multiple linear regression and logistic regression were adopted to analyze the association between serological hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) or hepatitis C RNA (HCV-RNA) positivity and VA levels. There were 5351 HBsAg-related responders and 242 HCV-RNA-related responders, including 52 HBsAg (+) and 104 HCV-RNA (+) responders. Compared with HBsAg (–) and HCV-RNA (–) respondents, HBsAg (+) and HCV-RNA (+) respondents tended to have lower serum VA levels, respectively [1.63 (1.33~2.01) vs 1.92 (1.57~2.34), P<0.001; 1.54 (1.25~1.83) vs 1.78 (1.46~2.26), P<0.001]. A greater percentage of responders in the subclinical VA deficiency (SVAD) group were HBsAg (+) and HCV-RNA (+) than were those in the normal VA (VAN) group [2.4% (9/374) vs 0.9% (43/4977), P=0.003; 61.5% (16/26) vs 40.7% (88/215), P=0.043]. According to the results of the multiple regression analyses of the different models, the serum VA concentration was negatively correlated with HBsAg (+) and HCV-RNA (+) status (β=-0.14, 95% CI=-0.30~-0.01, P=0.066; β=-0.29, 95% CI=-0.50~-0.09, P=0.005, respectively). Compared to those with SVAD, patients with VAN were less likely to be serologically HBsAg (+) or HCV-RNA (+) (OR=0.53, 95% CI=0.25~1.10, P=0.089; OR=0.39, 95% CI=0.18~0.84, P=0.016, respectively). Our study provides evidence that patients who are HBsAg (+) or HCV-RNA (+) have a high incidence of SVAD. Moreover, HBsAg and HCV-RNA positivity are negatively correlated with VA levels, and patients with SVAD are more likely to carry HBsAg (+) or HCV-RNA (+). These findings suggest that the relationship between hepatitis viruses and vitamin A needs to be validated by more basic studies and clinical large-sample randomized controlled trials to provide ideas for new therapeutic targets.

    Keywords: Serum VA1, HBsAg2, HCV-RNA3, NHANES4, virus hepatities5

    Received: 17 Feb 2024; Accepted: 15 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Liu, Fu, Xuepeng, Fu, Ji and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Yi Ji, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
    Siyuan Chen, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.