Infant Toenails Help Estimate Arsenic Exposure Before Birth

New research has demonstrated that toenails of an infant are a reliable way to estimate arsenic exposure before birth.

 Prolonged exposure to arsenic from water as well food has been associated with certain forms of cancer, skin lesions, elevated risk of heart disease and diabetes.  Dartmouth College researchers found a reliable way to estimate the level of arsenic exposure before birth.

Several earlier researches suggest that in utero and initial life exposure to arsenic may have a negative impact on the well-being of the children, even if the chemical element lurks at low to moderate levels, which is common in the United States.

The fetus develops toenails in the first trimester and the researchers determined the infant's exposure to low arsenic in utero by using plasma mass spectrometry.

The researchers worked on a sample of 170 mother-infant pairs from New Hampshire.

An association was seen between maternal postpartum toenail and urine arsenic concentration with the infant's.  A doubling in maternal concentration saw  54 percent rise in infant toenail arsenic concentration and 20 percent rise in urine arsenic. If a mother suffered from both toenail and urine arsenic high then for the infant the toenail concentration went up by 68 percent.

"In utero exposure to arsenic occurs through maternal drinking water and dietary sources, and infant toenails appear to be a reliable biomarker for estimating arsenic exposure during the critical window of gestation," says senior author Professor Margaret Karagas.

The finding was documented in Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.