Abstract
Ingestion of inorganic arsenic (iAs) is considered to be related to the development of diabetes mellitus. In order to clarify the possible differences in the metabolism in diabetics, we measured urinary iAs metabolites in diabetic cases and non-diabetic control subjects in Faridpur, an arsenic-contaminated area in Bangladesh. Physician-diagnosed type 2 diabetic cases (140 persons) and non-diabetic controls (180 persons) were recruited. Drinking water and spot urine samples were collected. Mean concentrations of total arsenic in drinking water did not differ between cases (85.1 μg/L) and controls (85.8 μg/L). The percentage of urinary iAs (iAs%) was significantly lower in cases (8.6%) than in controls (10.4%), while that of dimethylarsinic acid (DMA%) was higher in cases (82.6%) than in controls (79.9%). This may have been due to the higher secondary methylation index (SMI) in the former (11.6) rather than the latter (10.0). Adjusting for matching factors (sex and unions), and the additional other covariates (age and water arsenic) significantly attenuated the differences in iAs%, SMI, and DMA%, respectively, though the difference in monomethylarsonic acid% was newly significant in the latter adjustment. Our study did not suggest any significant differences in urinary arsenic metabolites between diabetic and non-diabetic subjects.
Highlights
Diabetic cases were older than controls (48.0 vs. 41.4 years, P ≤ 0.001, Table 1), and they had a significantly longer family history of diabetes than the controls (46.4% vs. 22.2%, P ≤ 0.001)
We found no significant difference in the duration of using the tube well for drinking water or in the arsenic concentration of the well water used between cases and controls
Random plasma glucose concentrations were significantly higher in diabetic cases than in the controls (P = 0.001)
Summary
Over 100 million people are exposed to arsenic from drinking contaminated groundwater [1,2].Arsenic contamination of the groundwater in Bangladesh is reported to be the World’s greatest calamity in terms of the population affected, since more than 50 million people in Bangladesh are chronically exposed to inorganic arsenic (iAs) concentrations exceeding the World Health Organization’s allowable standard (10 μg/L) [3,4].Inorganic arsenate (AsV) or arsenite (AsIII) are the usual forms of arsenic found in drinking water [5,6].Reduction and oxidative methylation are the two major processes that occur in the metabolism of iAs in the body [7,8,9,10,11,12]. Over 100 million people are exposed to arsenic from drinking contaminated groundwater [1,2]. Arsenic contamination of the groundwater in Bangladesh is reported to be the World’s greatest calamity in terms of the population affected, since more than 50 million people in Bangladesh are chronically exposed to inorganic arsenic (iAs) concentrations exceeding the World Health Organization’s allowable standard (10 μg/L) [3,4]. Inorganic arsenate (AsV) or arsenite (AsIII) are the usual forms of arsenic found in drinking water [5,6]. The methylation of iAs is considered to be a detoxification process, the reduction of AsV to AsIII in the methylation pathway can be viewed as a mechanism for activation of inorganic arsenic as a toxin and a carcinogen [8,18].
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