Arsenic exposure through drinking water increases kidney cancer risk, finds study

The analysis covered 101,776,294 person-years from 2016 to 2020 and 28,896 cancer diagnoses among people aged ≥20. In addition to geographical determinants spatial Poisson regression models calculated the risk ratio (RR) for incident kidney cancer based on drinking water arsenic levels by controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, and other risk variables. The data from water testing for both private wells and public water systems were used to determine population-weighted drinking water arsenic levels, which were then corrected for the populations supplied by each source.

This study found a dose-response connection (p-trend <0.001) between the medium (1 to 5 ppb) and high (>5 ppb) group counties and the low arsenic level counties (<1 ppb), with the incidence of cancer being 6% and 22% higher, respectively, after controlling for geographical variables and covariates. Furthermore, when drinking water arsenic level was viewed as a continuous variable, the incidence rose by 4% for every doubling of the level.

Overall, in line with other studies showing a link between drinking water exposure and skin, bladder, and lung cancers, this study indicates that even low levels of arsenic exposure may be linked to an increased risk of kidney cancer.

Source:

Hasan, N. T., Han, D., Xu, X., Sansom, G., & Roh, T. (2024). Relationship between low-level arsenic exposure in drinking water and kidney cancer risk in Texas. In Environmental Pollution (Vol. 363, p. 125097). Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2024.125097