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Rice Intake and Emerging Concerns on Arsenic in Rice: a Review of the Human Evidence and Methodologic Challenges

Current Environmental Health Reports volume 6, pages 361–372 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Purpose of Review

Rice is a major staple food worldwide and a dietary source of arsenic. We therefore summarized the state of the epidemiologic evidence on whether rice consumption relates to health outcomes associated with arsenic exposure.

Recent Findings

While epidemiologic studies have reported that higher rice consumption may increase the risk of certain chronic conditions, i.e., type 2 diabetes, most did not consider specific constituents of rice or other sources of arsenic exposure. Studies that examined rice intake stratified by water concentrations of arsenic found evidence of increasing trends in cardiovascular disease risk, skin lesions, and squamous cell skin cancers and bladder cancer associated with higher rice consumption.

Summary

Further studies are needed to understand the health impacts of arsenic exposure from rice consumption taking into account all sources of rice intake and potential confounding by other dietary constituents or contaminants and arsenic exposure from sources such as water.

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Funding

This paper, and five others published in Science of The Total Environment (STOTEN) [7,8,9,10,11], is a product of the Collaborative on Food with Arsenic and Associated Risk and Regulation (C-FARR): a two-year effort led by the Dartmouth Superfund Research Program and Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center. The Collaborative on Food with Arsenic and Associated Risk and Regulation (C-FARR) is supported by the Dartmouth College Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program P42ES007373 and the Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center at Dartmouth P01ES022832 from the NIEHS and RD83544201 from the EPA, and this submission was also supported by the Columbia Superfund Research Program P42ES010349 and grants NIEHS grant R01ES024423, and NIGMS grant P20GM104416.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, 03756, USA

    Margaret R. Karagas, Francis Slaughter & Despina Karalis

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, 03755, USA

    Tracy Punshon

  3. Department of Systems, Populations and Leadership, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Matt Davis

  4. Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA

    Catherine M. Bulka & Maria Argos

  5. Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA

    Habibul Ahsan

Authors
  1. Margaret R. Karagas
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  2. Tracy Punshon
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  7. Maria Argos
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  8. Habibul Ahsan
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Contributions

Margaret R. Karagas, Tracy Punshon, Matt Davis, Catherine M. Bulka, Maria Argos, and Habibul Ahsan conceived and designed the systematic review; Margaret R. Karagas, Tracy Punshon, Catherine M. Bulka, Francis Slaughter, Despina Karalis, and Maria Argos acquired and analyzed the data; Margaret R. Karagas, Tracy Punshon, Matt Davis, Catherine M. Bulka, and Habibul Ahsan interpreted the results; Margaret R. Karagas, Tracy Punshon, Matt Davis, Francis Slaughter, Despina Karalis, Catherine M. Bulka, Maria Argos, and Habibul Ahsan wrote the paper; Margaret R. Karagas, Maria Argos, and Habibul Ahsan had primary responsibility for final content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Margaret R. Karagas.

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Conflict of Interest

Margaret R. Karagas, Tracy Punshon, Matt Davis, Catherine M. Bulka, Francis Slaughter, Despina Karalis, Maria Argos, and Habibul Ahsan have no potential conflicts of interests to declare.

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The authors did not perform any studies with human or animal subjects.

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Karagas, M.R., Punshon, T., Davis, M. et al. Rice Intake and Emerging Concerns on Arsenic in Rice: a Review of the Human Evidence and Methodologic Challenges. Curr Envir Health Rpt 6, 361–372 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40572-019-00249-1

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Keywords

  • Rice
  • Arsenic
  • Epidemiology
  • Diet
  • Health effects