| Water Arsenic Exposure and Children's Intellectual Function in Araihazar, Bangladesh Gail A. Wasserman,1,2 Xinhua Liu,2,3 Faruque Parvez,3 Habibul Ahsan,3 Pam Factor-Litvak,3 Alexander van Geen,4 Vesna Slavkovich,3 Nancy J. LoIacono,3 Zhongqi Cheng,4 Iftikhar Hussain,5 Hassina Momotaj,6 and Joseph H. Graziano3 1Department of Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA; 2New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New York, USA; 3Mailman School of Public Health and 4Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA; 5National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine, Dhaka, Bangladesh; 6Columbia University Bangladesh Arsenic Project, New York, New York, USA Abstract
Exposure to arsenic has long been known to have neurologic consequences in adults, but to date there are no well-controlled studies in children. We report results of a cross-sectional investigation of intellectual function in 201 children 10 years of age whose parents participate in our ongoing prospective cohort study examining health effects of As exposure in 12,000 residents of Araihazar, Bangladesh. Water As and manganese concentrations of tube wells at each child's home were obtained by surveying all wells in the study region. Children and mothers came to our field clinic, where children received a medical examination in which weight, height, and head circumference were measured. Children's intellectual function on tests drawn from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, version III, was assessed by summing weighted items across domains to create Verbal, Performance, and Full-Scale raw scores. Children provided urine specimens for measuring urinary As and creatinine and were asked to provide blood samples for measuring blood lead and hemoglobin concentrations. Exposure to As from drinking water was associated with reduced intellectual function after adjustment for sociodemographic covariates and water Mn. Water As was associated with reduced intellectual function, in a dose-response manner, such that children with water As levels > 50 µg/L achieved significantly lower Performance and Full-Scale scores than did children with water As levels < 5.5 µg/L. The association was generally stronger for well-water As than for urinary As. Key words: arsenic, children, IQ. Environ Health Perspect 112:1329-1333 (2004) . doi:10.1289/ehp.6964 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 28 April 2004]
Address correspondence to G.A. Wasserman, New York State Psychiatric Institute, 1051 Riverside Dr., Unit 78, New York, NY 10032 USA. Telephone (212) 543-5296. Fax (212) 543-1000. E-mail: wassermg@childpsych.columbia.edu We thank J. Kline for her epidemiologic contributions. We also acknowledge our Bangladeshi field staff and the people of Araihazar. This work was supported by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences grants P42 ES 10349, P30 ES 09089, the Mailman School of Public Health, and the Earth Institute at Columbia University. The authors declare they have no competing financial interests. Received 14 January 2004 ; accepted 28 April 2004. Ann erratum was published in Environ Health Perspec 112: A980 (2004) ..
The full version of this article is available for free in HTML or PDF formats. |
