ArticleEnvironmental research2017
Low-level arsenic exposure from drinking water is associated with prostate cancer in Iowa.
Article in Environmental research, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 118 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of Pollution on Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis with Focus on Air Pollution.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Pooled it
- Drinking water nitrate, disinfection byproducts, and prostate cancer incidence in the Agricultural Health Study.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2026Article
- Urinary Trace Element Concentrations in Congolese Patients With Prostate Cancer: A Case-Control Study.Prostate cancer · 2026Article
- Arsenic in Drinking Water and Prostate Cancer: A Population-Based Case-Control Study in Northern Chile.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2025Article
- Chronic arsenic exposure of ovarian surface and fallopian tube cultures induces giant and/or multinucleated cells with phagocytosis-like properties and an inflammatory phenotype.Toxicology and applied pharmacology · 2025Article
- Isolation of aApplied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Health risk assessment upon exposure to groundwater arsenic among individuals of different sex and age groups of Vaishali district, Bihar (India).Toxicology reports · 2025Article
- Trace Element Concentrations of Arsenic and Selenium in Toenails and Risk of Prostate Cancer among Pesticide Applicators.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2024Article
- Prostate Cancer: Emerging Modifiable Risk Factors and Therapeutic Strategies in the Management of Advanced Cancer.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Arsenic Impairs Wound Healing Processes in Dermal Fibroblasts and Mice.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Arsenic-induced prostate cancer: an enigma.Medical oncology (Northwood, London, England) · 2024Review
- Arsenic and Human Health: New Molecular Mechanisms For Arsenic-Induced Cancers.Current pollution reports · 2023Article
- Review
- A holistic model of health inequalities for health policy and state administration: a case study in the regions of the Czech Republic.International journal for equity in health · 2023Article
- Relations between personal exposure to elevated concentrations of arsenic in water and soil and blood arsenic levels amongst people living in rural areas in Limpopo, South Africa.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2023Article
- Epigenomic reprogramming in iAs-mediated carcinogenesis.Advances in pharmacology (San Diego, Calif.) · 2023Article
- Polyadenylation of canonical histone H3.1 in carcinogenesis.Advances in pharmacology (San Diego, Calif.) · 2023Article
- Particulate arsenic trioxide induces higher DNA damage and reactive oxygen species than soluble arsenite in lung epithelial cells.Toxicology and applied pharmacology · 2022Article
- Stem Cells as Target for Prostate cancer Therapy: Opportunities and Challenges.Stem cell reviews and reports · 2022Review
- Arsenic Speciation and Metallomics Profiling of Human Toenails as a Biomarker to Assess Prostate Cancer Cases: Atlantic PATH Cohort Study.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Inorganic arsenic is a toxic naturally occurring element in soil and water in many regions of the US including the Midwest. Prostate cancer is the second most common type of cancer in men in Iowa, surpassed only by non-melanotic skin cancer. Epidemiology studies have evaluated arsenic exposure from drinking water and prostate cancer, but most have focused on high-level exposures outside the US. As drinking water from groundwater sources is a major source of arsenic exposure, we conducted an ecologic study to evaluate prostate cancer and arsenic in drinking water from public water sources and private wells in Iowa, where exposure levels are low, but duration of exposure can be long. Arsenic data from public water systems were obtained from the Iowa Safe Drinking Water Information System for the years 1994-2003 and for private wells from two Iowa Well Water Studies, the Iowa Community Private Well Study (ICPWS, 2002-2003) and Iowa Statewide Rural Well Water Survey Phase 2 (SWIRL2, 2006-2008) that provided data for 87 Iowa counties. Prostate cancer incidence data from 2009 to 2013 for Iowa were obtained from Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results' SEER*Stat software. County averages of water arsenic levels varied from 1.08 to 18.6 ppb, with three counties above the current 10 ppb limit. Based on the tertiles of arsenic levels, counties were divided into three groups: low (1.08-2.06 ppb), medium (2.07-2.98 ppb), and high (2.99-18.6 ppb). Spatial Poisson regression modeling was conducted to estimate the risk ratios (RR) of prostate cancer by tertiles of arsenic level at a county level, adjusted for demographic and risk factors. The RR of prostate cancer were 1.23 (95% CI, 1.16-1.30) and 1.28 (95% CI, 1.21-1.35) in the medium and high groups, respectively, compared to the low group after adjusting for risk factors. The RR increased to 1.36 (95% CI, 1.28-1.45) in the high group when analyses were restricted to aggressive prostate cancers (Gleason score ≥ 7). This study shows a significant dose-dependent association between low-level arsenic exposure and prostate cancer, and if this result is replicated in future individual-level studies, may suggest that 10 ppb is not protective for human health.
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