Associations between toenail arsenic concentration and dietary factors in a New Hampshire population

Public Deposited
Analytics

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
Request Version for Screen Reader
Creator
  • Gruber, Joann F
    • Other Affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA; Section of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
  • Karagas, Margaret R
    • Other Affiliation: Section of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
  • Gilbert-Diamond, Diane
    • Other Affiliation: Section of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
  • Bagley, Pamela J
    • Other Affiliation: Biomedical Libraries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
  • Zens, M Scot
    • Other Affiliation: Section of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
  • Sayarath, Vicki
    • Other Affiliation: Section of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
  • Punshon, Tracy
    • Other Affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
  • Morris, J
    • Other Affiliation: Research Reactor Center, University of Missouri and Harry S Truman Memorial Veterans Hospital, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
  • Cottingham, Kathryn L
    • Other Affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
Abstract
  • AbstractBackgroundDietary factors such as folate, vitamin B12, protein, and methionine are important for the excretion of arsenic via one-carbon metabolism in undernourished populations exposed to high levels of arsenic via drinking water. However, the effects of dietary factors on toenail arsenic concentrations in well-nourished populations exposed to relatively low levels of water arsenic are unknown.MethodsAs part of a population-based case–control study of skin and bladder cancer from the USA, we evaluated relationships between consumption of dietary factors and arsenic concentrations in toenail clippings. Consumption of each dietary factor was determined from a validated food frequency questionnaire. We used general linear models to examine the associations between toenail arsenic and each dietary factor, taking into account potentially confounding effects.ResultsAs expected, we found an inverse association between ln-transformed toenail arsenic and consumption of vitamin B12 (excluding supplements) and animal protein. Unexpectedly, there were also inverse associations with numerous dietary lipids (e.g., total fat, total animal fat, total vegetable fat, total monounsaturated fat, total polyunsaturated fat, and total saturated fat). Finally, increased toenail arsenic concentrations were associated with increased consumption of long chain n-3 fatty acids.ConclusionIn a relatively well-nourished population exposed to relatively low levels of arsenic via water, consumption of certain dietary lipids may decrease toenail arsenic concentration, while long chain n-3 fatty acids may increase toenail arsenic concentration, possibly due to their association with arsenolipids in fish tissue.
Date of publication
DOI
Identifier
Resource type
  • Article
Rights statement
  • In Copyright
Rights holder
  • Joann F Gruber et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
License
Journal title
  • Nutrition Journal
Journal volume
  • 11
Journal issue
  • 1
Page start
  • 45
Language
  • English
Is the article or chapter peer-reviewed?
  • Yes
ISSN
  • 1475-2891
Bibliographic citation
  • Nutrition Journal. 2012 Jun 29;11(1):45
Publisher
  • BioMed Central Ltd
Access right
  • Open Access
Date uploaded
  • August 22, 2012

Relations

Parents:

This work has no parents.

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details 1475-2891-11-45.pdf 2019-05-06 Public Download
file details Quartiles of consumption of significant dietary factors. This table provides summary statistics on the consumption of significant dietary factors. 2019-05-06 Public Download
file details List of all dietary factors analyzed. This table provides a list of all the dietary factors that were analyzed in this analysis. 2019-05-06 Public Download
file details Dietary factors significantly associated (bold) with toenail arsenic with and without adjustment for seafood consumption. 2019-05-06 Public Download
file details 1475-2891-11-45.xml 2019-05-06 Public Download