• Shilpi Oberoi, Aaron Barchowsky, and Felicia Wu.
• Authors' Affiliations: Departments of Environmental and Occupational Health and.
• Cancer Epidemiol. Biomarkers Prev. 2014 Jul 1;23(7):1187-94.

BackgroundArsenic is a ubiquitous, naturally occurring metalloid that poses a significant human cancer risk. While water consumption provides the majority of human exposure, millions of individuals worldwide are significantly exposed to arsenic through naturally occurring levels of arsenic in grains, vegetables, meats and fish, as well as through food processed with water containing arsenic. Thus, we estimated the global burdens of disease for bladder, lung, and skin cancers attributable to inorganic arsenic in food.MethodsTo determine foodborne inorganic arsenic exposures worldwide, we used World Health Organization estimates of food consumption in thirteen country clusters, in conjunction with reported measurements of total and inorganic arsenic in different foods. We estimated slope factors for arsenic-related bladder and lung cancers, and used the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency skin cancer slope factor, to calculate the annual risk of the cancer incidence in males and females within each country cluster.ResultsWe estimated that each year 9,129 to 119,176 additional cases of bladder cancer, 11,844 to 121,442 of lung cancer, and 10,729 to 110,015 of skin cancer worldwide are attributable to inorganic arsenic in food.ConclusionsThese estimates indicate that foodborne arsenic exposure causes a significant global burden of human disease.ImpactEstimating the global cancer burden caused by arsenic exposure in food will support policies that reduce exposure to disease-promoting environmental hazards.©2014 American Association for Cancer Research.

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