Unventilated Indoor Coal-Fired Stoves in Guizhou Province, China: Cellular and Genetic Damage in Villagers Exposed to Arsenic in Food and Air

作者：Aihua Zhang, Hong Feng, Guanghong Yang, Xueli Pan, Xianyao Jiang, Xiaoxin Huang, Xue-xin Dong, Yang Da-ping, Yaxiong Xie, Peng Luo, Li Jun, Changjun Hu, Jian Li, Xilan Wang · 发表于：Environmental Health Perspectives · 年份：2007 · DOI：10.1289/ehp.9272 · 被引用次数：83 · 研究领域：Arsenic contamination and mitigation、Occupational and environmental lung diseases、Carcinogens and Genotoxicity Assessment

BACKGROUND: Inorganic arsenic (iAs) is a well-known human carcinogen recognized by the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Currently, most iAs studies in populations are concerned with drinking water and occupational arsenicosis. In Guizhou province, arsenicosis caused by the burning of coal in unventilated indoor stoves is an unusual type of exposure. Because the poisoning mechanism involved in arsenicosis is as yet unknown and no effective therapy exists, progress has been slow on the prevention and therapy of arsenicosis. OBJECTIVES: We examined the relationship between arsenic (As) exposure from the burning of coal in unventilated indoor stoves and genetic damage in humans, using cellular and molecular indices. We selected villagers from Jiaole township, Guizhou province, China, who had been exposed to milligram levels of As daily via food and air contaminated by the burning of As-containing coal in unventilated indoor stoves. RESULTS: The As-exposed subjects from Jiaole were divided into four groups according to skin lesion symptoms: nonpatients, mild, intermediate, and severe arsenicosis. Another 53 villagers from a town 12 km from Jiaole were recruited as the external control group. In the four groups of exposed subjects, As concentrations in urine and hair were 76-145 microg/L and 5.4-7.9 microg/g, respectively. These values were higher than those in the external control group, which had As concentrations of 46 microg/L for u...