Background: A growing number of studies link chronic exposure to inorganic arsenic (iAs) with the risk of diabetes. Many of these studies assessed iAs exposure by measuring arsenic (As) species in urine. However, this approach has been criticized because of uncertainties associated with renal function and urine dilution in diabetic individuals.
Objectives: Our goal was to examine associations between the prevalence of diabetes and concentrations of As species in exfoliated urothelial cells (EUC) as an alternative to the measures of As in urine.
Methods: We measured concentrations of trivalent and pentavalent iAs methyl-As (MAs) and dimethyl-As (DMAs) species in EUC from 374 residents of Chihuahua, Mexico, who were exposed to iAs in drinking water. We used fasting plasma glucose, glucose tolerance tests, and self-reported diabetes diagnoses or medication to identify diabetic participants. Associations between As species in EUC and diabetes were estimated using logistic and linear regression, adjusting for age, sex, and body mass index.
Results: Interquartile-range increases in trivalent, but not pentavalent, As species in EUC were positively and significantly associated with diabetes, with ORs of 1.57 (95% CI: 1.19, 2.07) for iAsIII, 1.63 (1.24, 2.15) for MAsIII, and 1.31 (0.96, 1.84) for DMAsIII. DMAs/MAs and DMAs/iAs ratios were negatively associated with diabetes (OR = 0.62; 95% CI: 0.47, 0.83 and OR = 0.72; 95% CI: 0.55, 0.96, respectively).
Conclusions: Our data suggest that uncertainties associated with measures of As species in urine may be avoided by using As species in EUC as markers of iAs exposure and metabolism. Our results provide additional support to previous findings suggesting that trivalent As species may be responsible for associations between diabetes and chronic iAs exposure.
1Curriculum in Toxicology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA; 2Programa de Maestría en Ciencias en Biotecnología, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Chihuahua, México; 3Colegio de Médicos Cirujanos y Homeópatas del Estado de Chihuahua, A.C., Mexico; 4Departamento de Toxicología, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, México Distrito Federal, México; 5Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango, Gómez Palacio, Durango, México; 6Department of Nutrition, and 7Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA; 8Institute of Analytical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, v. v. i., Brno, Czech Republic; 9UNC School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA; 10Carolina Population Center, and 11Lineberger Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA; 12Monographs Section, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon Cedex, France
Recommended Citation:
Jenna M. Currier,1 María C. Ishida,2 Carmen González-Horta,et al. Associations between Arsenic Species in Exfoliated Urothelial Cells and Prevalence of Diabetes among Residents of Chihuahua, Mexico[J]. Environmental Health Perspectives,2014-01-01,Volume 122(Issue 10):1088