Urinary Arsenic in Human Samples from Areas Characterized by Natural or Anthropogenic Pollution in Italy

Arsenic is ubiquitous and has a potentially adverse impact on human health. Wecompared the distribution of concentrations of urinary inorganic arsenic plus methylated forms(uc(iAs+MMA+DMA)) in four Italian areas with other international studies, and we assessed therelationship between uc(iAs+MMA+DMA) and various exposure factors. We conducted a humanbiomonitoring study on 271 subjects (132 men) aged 20-44, randomly sampled and stratified byarea, gender, and age. Data on environmental and occupational exposure and dietary habits werecollected through a questionnaire. Arsenic was speciated using chromatographic separation andinductively coupled mass spectrometry. Associations between uc(iAs+MMA+DMA) and exposurefactors were evaluated using the geometric mean ratio (GMR) with a 90% confidence intervalby stepwise multiple regression analysis. The 95th percentile value of uc(iAs+MMA+DMA) forthe whole sample (86.28 µg/L) was higher than other national studies worldwide. A statisticalsignificant correlation was found between uc(iAs+MMA+DMA) and occupational exposure (GMR:2.68 [1.79-4.00]), GSTT gene (GMR: 0.68 [0.52-0.80]), consumption of tap water (GMR: 1.35 [1.02-1.77]),seafood (GMR: 1.44 [1.11-1.88]), whole milk (GMR: 1.34 [1.04-1.73]), and fruit/vegetables (GMR:1.37 [1.03-1.82]). This study demonstrated the utility of uc(iAs+MMA+DMA) as a biomarker toassess environmental exposure. In a public health context, this information could be used to supportremedial action, to prevent individuals from being further exposed to environmental arsenic sources