Arsenic and Tap Water - A link to Type 2 diabetes
2008-08-20 15:44:13 (GMT) (Caymanmama.com - Health News News)Norfolk, Virginia (CaymanMama.com) — According to the Associated Press, a new analysis compiled using government data identified a link of low-level arsenic exposure in drinking water to Type 2 diabetes. Researchers say that the study is not conclusive since more research is required, but that public water systems are currently working diligently to toughen U.S. arsenic standards as more data came in.
The analysis made up of 788 adults’ medical tests identified an approximate fourfold increase in the “risk of diabetes in people with low arsenic concentrations in their urine compared to people with even lower levels.” Although prior research studies have found a link to higher levels of arsenic in drinking water to link to diabetes, this is the first study of its kind to link diabetes to low levels. The study appeared in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
A lead author of the analysis, Dr. Ana Navas-Acien of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore noted that the condition is easily preventable.
The poisonous arsenic can naturally enter into drinking water as minerals dissolve. Arsenic is also a form of an industrial pollutant derived from burning coal and copper smelting. Water treatment utilities have filtration systems that remove the arsenic from drinking water.
The exact way that arsenic contributes to Type 2 diabetes is still unknown, however prior studies have indicated that impaired insulin secretion in the pancreatic cells are treated with an arsenic compound. Molly Kile, an environmental health research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health said, “Urinary arsenic reflects exposures from all routes — air, water and food — which makes it difficult to track the actual source of arsenic exposure let alone use the results from this study to establish drinking water standards.”
Kile also said that it is still unknown as to how diabetes changes the way the person metabolizes the poison. It is a possibility that diabetes patients excrete more arsenic.
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