Speciation
of Arsenic in Saliva Samples from a Population
of West Bengal, India
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Abstract
Saliva, an easily accessible biofluid,
is validated as biomarker
of arsenic (As) exposure in several villages of West Bengal, India.
Pentavalent arsenic [As(V)] was found to be the predominant species
in saliva, with the amount of inorganic As [As(V) and trivalent form,
As(III)] being more than half of the total As in the samples. Significant
association was found between total daily ingestion of As and As(V)
(<i>r</i> = 0.59; <i>p</i> = 0.000), As(III) (<i>r</i> = 0.60; <i>p</i> = 0.000), dimethylarsinous
acid (DMA<sup>V</sup>) (<i>r</i> = 0.40; <i>p</i> = 0.000), and monomethylarsonous acid (MMA<sup>V</sup>) (<i>r</i> = 0.44; <i>p</i> = 0.000), implying that these
species have mainly been derived from the methylation of the inorganic
As in the water that study participants drank and the food they ate.
Analysis of confounding effects of age, sex, smoking, body mass index
and the prevalence of skin lesion suggests that women and controls
with no skin lesion had a higher capacity to methylate the ingested
As compared to the rest of the population. Thus, our study demonstrates
that As species in saliva can be an useful tool to predict the individual
susceptibility where higher As exposure and a lower methylation capacity
are implicated in the development of As-induced health effects