Abstract
Early-life exposure to inorganic arsenic (i-As) may cause long-lasting health effects, but as yet, little is known about exposure among weaning infants. We assessed exposure before and during weaning and investigated the association between solid food intake and infants’ urinary arsenic species concentrations. Following the recording of a comprehensive 3 day food diary, paired urine samples (pre- and post-weaning) were collected and analyzed for arsenic speciation from 15 infants participating in the New Hampshire Birth Cohort Study. Infants had higher urinary i-As (p-value = 0.04), monomethylarsonic acid (MMA) (p-value = 0.002), dimethylarsinic acid (DMA) (p-value = 0.01), and sum of arsenic species (i-As + MMA + DMA, p-value = 0.01) during weaning than while exclusively fed on a liquid diet (i.e., breast milk, formula, or a mixture of both). Among weaning infants, increased sum of urinary arsenic species was pairwise-associated with intake of rice cereal (Spearman’s ρ = 0.90, p-value = 0.03), fruit (ρ = 0.70, p-value = 0.03), and vegetables (ρ = 0.86, p-value = 0.01). Our observed increases in urinary arsenic concentrations likely indicate increased exposure to i-As during the transition to solid foods, suggests the need to minimize exposure during this critical period of development.
Highlights
Arsenic is a ubiquitous element in the environment and occurs in different oxidation states with measurable levels in the food chain of inorganic arsenic (i-As), including arsenite and arsenate, as well as various organoarsenicals[1,2,3,4,5]
Health effects associated with direct exposure to organic forms of arsenic - including dimethylarsinic acid (DMA) and monomethylarsonic acid (MMA) - are less certain, and arsenobetaine (AsB), which predominates in fish and seafood products, is excreted in the urine unchanged, and, considered non-toxic[4,5,10,19]
Formula powder contains predominantly i-As with a total arsenic level of up to 12.6 μg/kg[25], which would lead to an arsenic content in ready-to-eat formula of about 20-fold higher than the median content in breast milk reported earlier[22] if arsenic-free water is used for formula powder reconstitution with a formula powder:water ratio 1:1
Summary
Arsenic is a ubiquitous element in the environment and occurs in different oxidation states with measurable levels in the food chain of i-As (inorganic arsenic), including arsenite and arsenate, as well as various organoarsenicals[1,2,3,4,5]. At 4 months of age, all study infants were exclusively fed with a liquid diet including breast milk, formula, or a mix of the two; no food diaries reported solid food intake.
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