Arsenic burden from cooked rice in the populations of arsenic affected and nonaffected areas and Kolkata City in West-Bengal, India.
Arsenic contamination of rice irrigated with contaminated groundwater contributes to the additional arsenic burden of the population where rice is the staple food. In an arsenic contaminated area, an experimental field-based study done on nine fields elucidated significant positive correlation between arsenic in irrigation water and soil, irrigation water and rice, and also soil and rice both for Boro (groundwater) and Aman (rainwater) rice. Speciation studies showed that for both Boro (cooked) and Aman (raw) rice from contaminated area, 90% of total recovered arsenic was inorganic. In arsenic contaminated, uncontaminated villages, and Kolkata city, daily quantities of arsenic ingested by adult population from cooked rice diet are equivalent to 6.5, 1.8, and 2.3 L respectively, of drinking water containing WHO guideline value. In contaminated area, daily intake only from cooked Boro rice for 34.6% of the samples exceeded the WHO recommended MTDI value (2 microg In-As day(-1) kg(-1) body wt), whereas daily intake from Aman rice was below MTDI value as was rice from uncontaminated areas and Kolkata city. Our study indicated that employing traditional rice cooking method as followed in Bengal delta and using water having arsenic <3 microg L(-1) for cooking, actual exposure to arsenic from rice would be much less.
Pal
Arup
A
School of Environmental Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700032, India.
Chowdhury
Uttam Kumar
UK
Mondal
Debapriya
D
Das
Bhaskar
B
Nayak
Bishwajit
B
Ghosh
Arijit
A
Maity
Sumana
S
Chakraborti
Dipankar
D
D000328:Adult; D000383:Agriculture; D001151:Arsenic / Q000032:analysis* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D003296:Cooking; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D012275:Oryza / Q000737:chemistry*; D044382:Population Groups; D011786:Quality Control; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012987:Soil / Q000032:analysis; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*; D014877:Water Pollution, Chemical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014944:World Health Organization
D012987:Soil; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D001151:Arsenic