Does Arsenic Lead to Diabetes or Do People with Diabetes Have More Arsenic?
High arsenic levels in drinking water has been linked to diabetes according to research done over the years. It is known that impaired insulin secretion in pancreas cells occurs when those cells are treated with an arsenic compound.
Here's the Bad News: a recent analysis of government data has linked Low-level arsenic exposure, possibly from drinking water, with Type 2 diabetes.
Molly Kile, an environmental health research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health says in an editorial in the journal JAMA. “Urinary arsenic reflects exposures from all routes—air, water, and food—which makes it difficult to track the actual source of arsenic exposure, let alone use the results from this study to establish drinking water standards,” . Kile also said the findings raise a sort of “chicken-and-egg problem,” since it’s unknown whether diabetes changes the way people metabolize arsenic. It is also possible that people with diabetes actually excrete more arsenic.
