Title: “Safe” Levels Of Arsenic In Drinking Water Have Negative Health Effects on Pregnant/Lactating Mothers And Offspring, Scientists Find
Headings: “Safe” Levels Of Arsenic In Drinking Water Have Negative Health Effects on Pregnant/Lactating Mothers And Offspring, Scientists Find
“Safe” Levels Of Arsenic In Drinking Water Have Negative Health Effects on Pregnant/Lactating Mothers And Offspring, Scientists Find
June 1, 2012 by

Content: Additional information and resources can be found on the Dartmouth Toxic Metals web site . Based on this and prior studies ( Environ. Hlth. Perspect. 2009), Hamilton and colleagues posit that exposure to low levels of arsenic may act as a predisposing factor, in which a second stress is needed to induce adverse health affects. In this study, pregnancy and lactation acted as that secondary stress. In the prior study, Hamilton’s group demonstrated that arsenic suppressed immune function, leading to dramatically greater effects of a flu infection in mice. Offspring are also uniquely sensitive to environmental chemicals because “they are developing rapidly. It’s not hard for very low doses of a chemical to have big effects on a developing animal,” Hamilton says. In the current study, the mothers who were exposed to arsenic had significantly lower triglyceride concentrations in their serum and breast milk than normal, indicating the process of fat metabolism and storage in their bodies was compromised.