{"id":1190,"date":"2014-06-05T14:00:44","date_gmt":"2014-06-05T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ijph.blogs.springer.com\/?p=1190"},"modified":"2014-06-05T14:00:44","modified_gmt":"2014-06-05T12:00:44","slug":"does-chronic-low-level-arsenic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/general-public-health\/does-chronic-low-level-arsenic\/","title":{"rendered":"Does chronic low level arsenic exposure reduce lung function?"},"content":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/ijph.blogs.springer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/india_water.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1195\" alt=\"india_water\" src=\"http:\/\/ijph.blogs.springer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/india_water.jpg\" width=\"302\" height=\"227\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2014\/06\/india_water.jpg 640w, http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2014\/06\/india_water-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 302px) 100vw, 302px\" \/><\/a>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>According to the World Health Organisation, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.who.int\/water_sanitation_health\/dwq\/arsenic\/en\/\">arsenic exposure in drinking water is a hazard<\/a> to human health. The association of arsenic exposure and lung cancer risk has been studied quite extensively; the association of such exposure, however, to non-malignant respiratory diseases.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s00038-014-0567-5\">a recently published study<\/a>, Das Debangshu** and colleagues aimed to investigate the respiratory effects of chronic low-level arsenic exposure from groundwater in West Bengal, India. Two groups of healthy, non-smoker males were compared to each other: one group was exposed to drinking water with arsenic, while the other was drinking water with less than 10\u03bcg\/L arsenic (total n=834). The prevalence of respiratory symptoms and the lung function was examined in all participants.<\/p>\n<p>The authors report higher prevalence of upper and lower respiratory symptoms, dyspnea, asthma, eye irritation and headache. About 20% of arsenic-exposed subjects had lung function deficits, compared to about 13% of the unexposed subjects.<\/p>\n<p>The authors conclude that even low level arsenic exposure (11\u201350\u00a0\u00b5g\/L) has harmful respiratory effects. In this area of India and the neighbouring Bangladesh this finding is of particular importance, as many people are exposed to such levels of arsenic.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mckaysavage\/2563743107\/in\/photolist-4UC7Uy-4UxRvn-8etpPv\">*picture credit<\/a><\/p>\n<p>** this study was written by: Debangshu\u00a0Das, Banani\u00a0Bindhani, Bidisha\u00a0Mukherjee, Hirak\u00a0Saha, Priyanka\u00a0Biswas, Kaustav\u00a0Dutta, Priyanka\u00a0Prasad, Dona\u00a0Sinhaand Manas\u00a0Ranjan\u00a0Ray<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">&nbsp; According to the World Health Organisation, arsenic exposure in drinking water is a hazard to human health. The association of arsenic exposure and lung cancer risk has been studied quite extensively; the association of such exposure, however, to non-malignant respiratory diseases. In a recently published study, Das Debangshu** and colleagues aimed to investigate the&#8230;  <a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/general-public-health\/does-chronic-low-level-arsenic\/\" title=\"Read Does chronic low level arsenic exposure reduce lung function?\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":301,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,11,25],"tags":[75,351,432,527,749,945],"class_list":["post-1190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-public-health","category-hot-off-the-press","category-international-journal-of-public-health","category-uncategorized","tag-arsenic","tag-groundwater","tag-india","tag-lung-function","tag-respiratory-symptoms","tag-west-bengal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/301"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}