Cancer risks from arsenic in drinking water.

Abstract

Ingestion of arsenic, both from water supplies and medicinal preparations, is known to cause skin cancer. The evidence assessed here indicates that arsenic can also cause liver, lung, kidney, and bladder cancer and that the population cancer risks due to arsenic in U.S. water supplies may be comparable to those from environmental tobacco smoke and radon in homes. Large population studies in an area of Taiwan with high arsenic levels in well water (170-800 micrograms/L) were used to establish dose-response relationships between cancer risks and the concentration of inorganic arsenic naturally present in water supplies. It was estimated that at the current EPA standard of 50 micrograms/L, the lifetime risk of dying from cancer of the liver, lung, kidney, or bladder from drinking 1 L/day of water could be as high as 13 per 1000 persons. It has been estimated that more than 350,000 people in the United States may be supplied with water containing more than 50 micrograms/L arsenic, and more than 2.5 million people may be supplied with water with levels above 25 micrograms/L. For average arsenic levels and water consumption patterns in the United States, the risk estimate was around 1/1000. Although further research is needed to validate these findings, measures to reduce arsenic levels in water supplies should be considered.

Influences of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungus Glomus mosseae on Growth and Nutrition of Lentil Irrigated with Arsenic Contaminated Water

“…Groundwater contamination by arsenic (As) has been reported from many countries, with the most severe problems occurring in Asia, particularly Bangladesh Dhar et al, 1997;Nickson et al, 1998), West Bengal, India , China (Wang and Huang, 1994) and Taiwan (Chen et al, 1995;Smith et al, 1992). In Bangladesh, arsenic contamination of groundwater was confirmed in 1993 (British Geological Survey, 2000;Tondel et al, 1999).…”

Evaluation of stability of arsenic species in rice

“…Some rice-producing areas such as Bangladesh [1,2], West Bengal (India) [3], China [4] and Taiwan [5,6], typically present a very high arsenic content in the soil and water. It is known that inorganic As(III) and As(V) are the dominant forms of arsenic species in waters and soils and the oxidation state is highly dependent on aerobic (As(V) predominant) or anoxic (As(III) predominant) conditions [7,8].…”

Metallomics Research Related to Arsenic

“…It is now well known that ingestion of inorganic arsenic may cause cancer of the skin, bladder, kidney, lung and liver, as well as disorders of the circulatory and nervous systems [41][42][43]. Thus, studies on environmental pollution due to arsenic in South East Asian areas have been conducted by several research groups [44][45][46].…”