Abstract

Exposure to environmental pollutants in humans can be conducted through direct measurement of biological media such as blood, urine or hair. Assessment studies of metals and metalloids in Malaysia is very scarce although cross-sectional nationwide human biomonitoring surveys have been established by the USA, Canada, Germany, Spain, France, and Korea. This study aims to assess urinary metal levels namely cadmium (Cd), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb) and arsenic (As) among Malaysian adults. This was a cross-sectional study involving 1440 adults between the age of 18 and 88 years old. After excluding those with 24 h urine samples of less than 500 ml, urine creatinine levels < 0.3 or > 3.0 g/L and those who refuse to participate in the study, a total of 817 respondents were included for analysis. A questionnaire with socio-demographic information such as age, gender, occupation, ethnic, academic qualification and medical history was administered to the respondents. Twenty-four-hour urine samples were collected in a container before being transported at 4 °C to the laboratory. Samples were then aliquoted into 15 ml tubes and kept at − 80 °C until further analysis. Urine was diluted ten-fold with ultrapure water, filtered and analysed for metals and metalloids using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). The geometric mean of urinary As, Ni, Cd and Pb concentrations among adults in Malaysia was 48.21, 4.37, 0.32, and 0.80 µg/L, respectively. Males showed significantly higher urinary metal concentrations compared to females for As, Cd and Pb except for Ni. Those who resided in rural areas exhibited significantly higher As, Cd and Pb urinary concentrations than those who resided in urban areas. As there are no nationwide data on urinary metals, findings from this study could be used to identify high exposure groups, thus enabling policy makers to improve public health strategically.

Highlights

  • Toxic metals and metalloids pose health risk to humans due to their abundance in nature as they are widely deposited in air, soil and water

  • Living quarters were randomly selected by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM)

  • Most of the study population was Malay (64%), followed by Chinese (10.5%) and Indian (5.9%) which is coherent to ethnic distribution in Malaysia (DOSM 2020), predominantly being housewives (28.3%), possessed secondary education (61.8%), resided in rural (58%) as opposed to urban (42%), non-smokers (67.6%) and had an average Body Mass Index (BMI) of 26.7 kg/m2 (± 5.3)

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Summary

Introduction

Toxic metals and metalloids pose health risk to humans due to their abundance in nature as they are widely deposited in air, soil and water. They have no role in human physiology and may cause intoxication. The most common source of exposure in the general population is through oral intake. The general population are usually exposed to inorganic As from drinking water and eating contaminated food (rice and grains) (EFSA 2009), while exposure to organic As is mainly from consumption of fish and seafood (Fransesconi and Kuehnelt 2004).

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