Overview
Using three-day food diaries and spot urine samples from 242 one-year-olds in the New Hampshire Birth Cohort Study, the authors tested whether eating apple juice, apple puree, whole apples or apple-containing foods raised urinary arsenic. Urinary arsenic was similar in apple consumers and non-consumers. No apples or apple products were analyzed.
Key numbers
- Geometric mean urinary sum of inorganic arsenic, MMA and DMA: 2.78 µg/L in 59 non-consumers versus 2.38 (apple juice, n = 30), 2.46 (puree, n = 67), 2.28 (whole fruit, n = 20) and 2.73 µg/L (mixed products, n = 21) (Abstract; Results).
- Urinary arsenic was unrelated to the number of apple servings over the three days (Results).
Methods (brief)
Urinary arsenic species by HPLC-ICP-MS (LOD 0.06 to 0.10 µg/L); infants with arsenobetaine of 1 µg/L or more were excluded to limit seafood confounding. Linear models were adjusted for factors including household water arsenic.
Evidence Fitness
Context only: an exposure-biomarker study with no food concentrations. Apple juice levels in the discussion are quoted from FDA and other surveys and belong to those sources. It does not measure apple pie or any apple food. The PDF is the PMC author manuscript of the published paper.