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Advances made in Understanding the Effects of Arsenic Exposure on Humans


Affiliations
1 Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research–Kolkata, Mohanpur 741 246, India
 

Arsenic contamination of drinking water is a great concern for public health throughout the world. This alarming situation led to many independent research studies but there are only a few studies till date which collectively articulated all studies together with a multidisciplinary approach for better understanding. The present article is an effort towards collating the advances made in understanding the impacts of arsenic toxicity on human beings. It discusses the sources, mobility, sensing and metabolism patterns of arsenic. It also deals with understanding the impact of arsenic toxicity over clinical health, nutritional status, carcinogenicity, genomics, and social and economic status of human beings. Though many evaluative studies have been conducted, there are no easy and effective measures of sensing and remediation available till date. Hence, we conclude that more collective, multidisciplinary, advanced and target-specific studies are essential, the outcome of which can contribute in developing better prevention strategies and technological mitigation programmes for the betterment of human kind.

Keywords

Arsenic, Arsenite, Arsenate, Cytotoxic, Genotoxic, Carcinogenic.
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  • Advances made in Understanding the Effects of Arsenic Exposure on Humans

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Authors

Subhajit Das Sarma
Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research–Kolkata, Mohanpur 741 246, India
Afaq Hussain
Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research–Kolkata, Mohanpur 741 246, India
Jayasri Das Sarma
Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research–Kolkata, Mohanpur 741 246, India

Abstract


Arsenic contamination of drinking water is a great concern for public health throughout the world. This alarming situation led to many independent research studies but there are only a few studies till date which collectively articulated all studies together with a multidisciplinary approach for better understanding. The present article is an effort towards collating the advances made in understanding the impacts of arsenic toxicity on human beings. It discusses the sources, mobility, sensing and metabolism patterns of arsenic. It also deals with understanding the impact of arsenic toxicity over clinical health, nutritional status, carcinogenicity, genomics, and social and economic status of human beings. Though many evaluative studies have been conducted, there are no easy and effective measures of sensing and remediation available till date. Hence, we conclude that more collective, multidisciplinary, advanced and target-specific studies are essential, the outcome of which can contribute in developing better prevention strategies and technological mitigation programmes for the betterment of human kind.

Keywords


Arsenic, Arsenite, Arsenate, Cytotoxic, Genotoxic, Carcinogenic.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv112%2Fi10%2F2008-2015