{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,17]],"date-time":"2026-09-17T05:03:37Z","timestamp":1789621417091,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":55,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,17]],"date-time":"2026-09-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789603200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Public Health"],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The associations between ambient benzene exposure and thyroid dysfunction (hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism), as well as the role of biological aging, remain largely unknown.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>We included a total of 385,130 participants from the UK Biobank, and Cox regressions were used to assess the association between benzene exposure and incident thyroid dysfunction. We employed restricted cubic splines to fit potential nonlinear exposure\u2013response relationships. Furthermore, interactions and mediation analyses were conducted to examine the mediating role of biological aging.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>\n                      Benzene exposure was dose-responsively associated with an increased risk of thyroid dysfunction, each 1\u202f\u03bcg\/m\n                      <jats:sup>3<\/jats:sup>\n                      increase in benzene concentration was linked to hazard ratios (HRs) of 1.19 (95% CI: 1.16, 1.21) for hypothyroidism and 1.21 (95% CI: 1.18, 1.25) for hyperthyroidism. Participants with higher benzene exposure and older biological age showed a greater risk for hypothyroidism compared to those with lower exposure and younger biological age, with a relative excess risk (RERI) of 0.40 (95% CI: 0.13, 0.66). Furthermore, accelerated biological aging significantly mediated the association between benzene exposure and hyperthyroidism. Comparing the highest to the lowest quartile of benzene exposure, the proportion mediated (PM) (95% CI) was 3.07% (2.05, 4.08%).\n                    <\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Long-term exposure to low concentrations benzene may increase the risk of incident thyroid dysfunction. Accelerated biological aging demonstrated a significant additive interaction with benzene exposure on the risk of hypothyroidism and partially mediated the positive association between benzene exposure and the risk of hyperthyroidism.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpubh.2026.1964801","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,17]],"date-time":"2026-09-17T04:29:09Z","timestamp":1789619349000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Long-term exposure to low concentrations of ambient benzene with incident thyroid dysfunction and the mediating role of accelerated biological aging"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Liliang","family":"Yu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Hubei Province Key Laboratory of Occupational Hazard Identification and Control, Department of Environmental Hygiene and Occupational Medicine, School of Public Health, Healthy Hubei Development and Social Progress Research Center of the Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences in Hubei Province, Wuhan University of Science and Technology","place":["Wuhan, Hubei, China"]},{"name":"Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Management, Chongqing Three Gorges Medical College","place":["Chongqing, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Changlai","family":"Lyu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mathematics\/Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology","place":["Hong Kong, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Meiqi","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hubei Province Key Laboratory of Occupational Hazard Identification and Control, Department of Environmental Hygiene and Occupational Medicine, School of Public Health, Healthy Hubei Development and Social Progress Research Center of the Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences in Hubei Province, Wuhan University of Science and Technology","place":["Wuhan, Hubei, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Bin","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology","place":["Wuhan, Hubei, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Daikun","family":"Zheng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Management, Chongqing Three Gorges Medical College","place":["Chongqing, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yunhao","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hubei Province Key Laboratory of Occupational Hazard Identification and Control, Department of Environmental Hygiene and Occupational 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