Arsenic Species in Chicken Breast: Temporal Variations of Metabolites, Elimination Kinetics, and Residual Concentrations

Abstract

Background:Chicken meat has the highest per capita consumption among all meat types in North America. The practice of feeding 3-nitro-4-hydroxyphenylarsonic acid (Roxarsone, Rox) to chickens lasted for more than 60 years. However, the fate of Rox and arsenic metabolites remaining in chicken are poorly understood.Objectives:We aimed to determine the elimination of Rox and metabolites from chickens and quantify the remaining arsenic species in chicken meat, providing necessary information for meaningful exposure assessment.Methods:We have conducted a 35-day feeding experiment involving 1,600 chickens, of which half were control and the other half were fed a Rox-supplemented diet for the first 28 days and then a Rox-free diet for the final 7 days. We quantified the concentrations of individual arsenic species in the breast meat of 229 chickens.Results:Rox, arsenobetaine, arsenite, monomethylarsonic acid, dimethylarsinic acid, and a new arsenic metabolite, were detected in breast meat from chickens fed Rox. The concentrations of arsenic species, except arsenobetaine, were significantly higher in the Rox-fed than in the control chickens. The half-lives of elimination of these arsenic species were 0.4–1 day. Seven days after termination of Rox feeding, the concentrations of arsenite (3.1 μg/kg), Rox (0.4 μg/kg), and a new arsenic metabolite (0.8 μg/kg) were significantly higher in the Rox-fed chickens than in the control.Conclusion:Feeding of Rox to chickens increased the concentrations of five arsenic species in breast meat. Although most arsenic species were excreted rapidly when the feeding of Rox stopped, arsenic species remaining in the Rox-fed chickens were higher than the background levels.Citation:Liu Q, Peng H, Lu X, Zuidhof MJ, Li XF, Le XC. 2016. Arsenic species in chicken breast: temporal variations of metabolites, elimination kinetics, and residual concentrations. Environ Health Perspect 124:1174–1181; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1510530

Arsenic in chicken: a tale of data and policy

“…The concerns extend in multiple directions raising questions about the impact of poultry farm waste on the environment, chemical exposures to the consumer, appropriate use of antibiotics and more 14 15. When we analysed the NRP data for arsenic, we pulled on one thread in a range of knotty issues.…”

Poultry Consumption and Arsenic Exposure in the U.S. Population

“…Detectable arsenobetaine in NHANES has shown to be an excellent biomarker of recent seafood intake (NavasAcien et al 2011). Restricting our study population to participants with undetectable arsenobetaine likely removed the contribution of seafood arsenicals to both total arsenic and DMA, which could then be interpreted as biomarkers of arsenic exposure not derived from seafood (Liu et al 2016;Navas-Acien et al 2011).…”

“…Elevated total and inorganic arsenic is found in poultry tissues and meat after treatment with arsenicals (Conklin et al 2012;, and conventionally produced poultry is known to have higher levels of total and inorganic arsenic than organic and antibiotic-free poultry (Nachman et al 2013). In chicken feeding experiments, a roxarsone diet resulted in elevated iAs, MMA, DMA, and roxarsone compared with a roxarsone-free diet (Liu et al 2016). These findings are compelling, although it is always possible that other arsenic sources are responsible for elevated arsenic in poultry tissue, such as accidental or naturally occurring contamination of the soil, water, food supply, or packaging process (Hettick et al 2015).…”

“…Arsenic-based drugs (roxarsone, used in chickens, and nitarsone, used in turkeys) were deliberately used in U.S. poultry production for decades, potentially representing an unnecessary and easily controllable source of exposure to iAs, MMA, DMA, and roxarsone/nitarsone in the population (Liu et al 2016;Nachman et al 2016;Silbergeld and Nachman 2008). The FDA withdrew marketing approvals for roxarsone and for two other arsenic-based feed additives in 2013, and they withdrew approval for nitarsone, which is used to prevent histomoniasis in turkeys, in December of 2015 (FDA 2014bAbraham et al 2013).…”

Fast extraction methodologies for the determination of toxic arsenic in meat

“…Arsenic may reach meat by two main sources: i) trough plants growing in naturally As‐rich soils or industrially polluted with As soils, ii) through organoarsenicals drugs used in poultry production (Püssa, ). These organoarsenicals, which have low toxicity to animals, can be metabolised to the more toxic As(III) and As(V) (Conklin et al ., ; Zhang et al ., ; Liu et al ., ) and through repeated annual poultry litter applications to agricultural soils may result in arsenic build‐up in soil and lead to plant uptake and subsequent transfer to the human food chain (Cui et al ., ).…”