NHANES Blood Lead Levels and Retinal Vein Occlusion Risk Analysis

Shuai Yang published a dataset on figshare in 2026 analyzing the link between blood lead levels and retinal vein occlusion. The data includes results from a study of 5,415 participants from the 2005-2008 NHANES survey, where 32 had RVO, and transcriptomic analysis of lead-treated endothelial cells. The findings suggest lead exposure may increase RVO risk by disrupting Wnt signaling pathways.

Use Cases

• Train a risk prediction model for retinal vein occlusion based on blood lead concentration levels.
• Conduct a meta-analysis on environmental risk factors for vascular eye diseases using the NHANES cohort data.
• Validate gene expression changes related to Wnt signaling or phosphodiesterase activity in endothelial cells exposed to lead.
• Investigate the combined effects of multiple heavy metal exposures on ocular health outcomes.

Strengths

• Includes data from 5,415 participants from a nationally representative survey (NHANES).
• Contains results from RNA sequencing identifying 166 common differentially expressed genes.
• Provides validated qRT-PCR results for PRICKLE4 and PLCXD1 expression changes.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count for the primary analysis dataset is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The dataset is very small (10.6 KB), indicating limited scope, likely containing summary results rather than raw participant-level data.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Analysis of 2005-2008 NHANES survey data and laboratory RNA sequencing of HUVECs treated with lead nitrate.

Time Range

2005-2008 for NHANES participant data.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-12 05:42:54; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United States (NHANES survey).