TY - JOUR
T1 - Arsenic level in toenails is associated with hearing loss in humans
AU - Li, Xiang
AU - Ohgami, Nobutaka
AU - Yajima, Ichiro
AU - Xu, Huadong
AU - Iida, Machiko
AU - Oshino, Reina
AU - Ninomiya, Hiromasa
AU - Shen, Dandan
AU - Ahsan, Nazmul
AU - Akhand, Anwarul Azim
AU - Kato, Masashi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Li et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2018/7
Y1 - 2018/7
N2 - Arsenic (As) pollution in drinking water is a worldwide health risk for humans. We previously showed hearing loss in young people who live in areas of As-polluted drinking water and in young mice orally treated with As. In this study, we epidemiologically examined associations between As levels in toenails and hearing in 145 Bangladeshi aged 12–55 years in 2014. Levels of As in toenails, but not those in urine, were shown to be significantly correlated with hearing loss at 4 kHz [odds ratio (OR) = 4.27; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.51, 12.05], 8 kHz (OR = 3.91; 95% CI: 1.47, 10.38) and 12 kHz (OR = 4.15; 95% CI: 1.55, 11.09) by multivariate analysis with adjustments for age, sex, smoking and BMI. Our experimental study further showed a significant association between As levels in inner ears and nails (r = 0.8113, p = 0.0014) in mice orally exposed to As, suggesting that As level in nails is a suitable index to assess As level in inner ears. Taken together, the results of our study suggest that As level in nails could be a convenient and non-invasive biomarker for As-mediated hearing loss in humans.
AB - Arsenic (As) pollution in drinking water is a worldwide health risk for humans. We previously showed hearing loss in young people who live in areas of As-polluted drinking water and in young mice orally treated with As. In this study, we epidemiologically examined associations between As levels in toenails and hearing in 145 Bangladeshi aged 12–55 years in 2014. Levels of As in toenails, but not those in urine, were shown to be significantly correlated with hearing loss at 4 kHz [odds ratio (OR) = 4.27; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.51, 12.05], 8 kHz (OR = 3.91; 95% CI: 1.47, 10.38) and 12 kHz (OR = 4.15; 95% CI: 1.55, 11.09) by multivariate analysis with adjustments for age, sex, smoking and BMI. Our experimental study further showed a significant association between As levels in inner ears and nails (r = 0.8113, p = 0.0014) in mice orally exposed to As, suggesting that As level in nails is a suitable index to assess As level in inner ears. Taken together, the results of our study suggest that As level in nails could be a convenient and non-invasive biomarker for As-mediated hearing loss in humans.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0198743
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0198743
M3 - Article
C2 - 29975704
AN - SCOPUS:85049512194
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 13
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 7
M1 - e0198743
ER -
