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TUESDAY, Aug. 19 (HealthDay News) -- High levels of arsenic in urine may be linked with a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, researchers report.

The findings, published in the Aug. 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, are the first to link low-level exposure to arsenic with type 2 diabetes prevalence in the United States.

"This suggests that arsenic would play a role in the development of diabetes," said lead researcher Dr. Ana Navas-Acien, assistant professor of environmental health science at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. "But there clearly needs to be additional research conducted because our study has certain limitations. We are conducting those studies now, but that's going to take a few years."

"This is a good base for future research but it's a small sample size and doesn't look at dose-response," added Rajat Sethi, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences with the Texas A&M Health Science Center's Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy, in Kingsville. "A lot of research still needs to be done."

Inorganic arsenic from natural mineral deposits contaminates much drinking water. Individuals exposed to enough arsenic can develop cancer, among other conditions, experts note.

According to background information in the study, about 13 million people in the United States live in areas with a concentration of inorganic arsenic in the public water supply that exceeds recommended levels.

In animal studies, high concentrations of arsenic affected glucose and insulin mechanism -- key factors in type 2 diabetes.

And, epidemiologic studies in Taiwan, Bangladesh and Mexico, which have relatively high levels of inorganic arsenic in drinking water, have associated arsenic with the development of diabetes.

It's unclear, however, if lower levels of arsenic might have a similar effect. In areas such as Taiwan and Bangladesh, arsenic levels in drinking water are above 100 micrograms per liter, while in the United States the safety standard is only 10 micrograms per liter.

"In terms of magnitude, people in Taiwan and Bangladesh are exposed to at least 10 times higher levels compared to people in the U.S.," Navas-Acien said. "We were interested in investigating if arsenic exposure at low and moderate levels could be related to diabetes."

After analyzing 788 U.S. adults aged 20 or older, the study authors found that people with type 2 diabetes had a 26 percent higher level of total arsenic in their urine than participants without type 2 diabetes.

People with the highest levels of arsenic were almost 3.6 times more likely to have diabetes than people with the lowest levels, the researchers found.

Those with the highest levels of dimethylarsinate (a compound into which inorganic arsenic is metabolized) had 1.5 times the risk of diabetes as those with the lowest levels. This was after adjusting for organic arsenic compounds such as arsenobetaine and arsenosugars, which come primarily from seafood.

"When we adjusted for diabetes risk factors and for markers of seafood intake, we found this moderate-to-strong relationship between arsenic and the prevalence of diabetes," Navas-Acien said.

In the United States, the main sources of inorganic arsenic are contaminated drinking water and food. An estimated 8 percent of public water supply systems in the United States may have arsenic levels higher than 10 micrograms per liter while 14 percent may have levels exceeding 2 micrograms per liter, the researchers said.

"There are still many Americans with arsenic in drinking water at levels above safety standards," said Navas-Acien. "This reinforces how important it is that all drinking water is below this standard. The good news is that we can actually do something to eliminate arsenic from water."

Small, rural and semi-rural communities may be at especially high risk for high arsenic levels in drinking water, Navas-Acien.

More information

For more on arsenic in the water supply, visit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

MONDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) -- Women with type 2 diabetes and heart disease often receive less of the medical treatment they need than men, making their ability to control both diseases more difficult, a new study reports.

The research findings, expected to be presented at the Endocrine Society's annual meeting in San Francisco, probably explains why death from heart disease is being lowered in male diabetics but not among females.

"Our study shows that in patients with diabetes, there is a clear disparity between men and women in the control and treatment of important modifiable risk factors for cardiovascular disease," study leader Dr. Ioanna Gouni-Berthold, professor of medicine at the University of Cologne in Germany, said in a prepared statement.

"Women have worse control of their blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol levels compared to men and are given cholesterol-lowering medications less often," she said.

Researchers from three German universities studied almost 45,000 people with type 2 diabetes, 40 percent with heart and vascular disease, who were treated by private-practice physicians.

In the group with cardiovascular disease, they found that:

• While women were 44 percent more likely than men to have high LDL ("bad") cholesterol, they were 15 percent less likely to receive lipid-lowering medications.
• Women also were 19 percent more likely than men to have uncontrolled high blood pressure.
• Women were 15 percent more likely to have poor long-term control of their blood glucose (sugar) level.

While women are normally less likely then men to die from heart disease, the findings shows diabetes may negate some of that lower risk, Gouni-Berthold said.

"More aggressive treatment of cardiovascular disease in women with diabetes may improve the gender disparity in cardiovascular disease mortality," she added. "Patients should speak with their doctors about the intensity of treatment modalities."

More information

The American Diabetes Association has more about diabetes  .