Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0917816 (mental retardation)
 15,867 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Arsenic toxicity is a global health problem affecting many millions of people. The main source of exposure is drinking water contaminated by natural geological sources. Current risk assessment is based on the recognized carcinogenicity of arsenic, but neurotoxic risks have been overlooked. In 1955, an outbreak of arsenic poisoning occurred among Japanese infants, with more than 100 deaths. The source was contaminated milk powder produced by the Morinaga company. Detailed accounts of the Morinaga dried milk poisoning were published in Japanese only, and an overview of this poisoning incident and its long-term consequences is therefore presented. From analyses available, the arsenic concentration in milk made from the Morinaga milk powder is calculated to be about 4-7 mg/L, corresponding to daily doses slightly above 500 microg/kg body weight. Lower exposures would result from using diluted milk. Clinical poisoning cases occurred after a few weeks of exposure, with a total dose of about 60 mg. This experience provides clear-cut evidence for hazard assessment of the developmental neurotoxicity. At the present time, more than 600 surviving victims, now in their 50s, have been reported to suffer from severe sequelae, such as mental retardation, neurological diseases, and other disabilities. Along with more recent epidemiological studies of children with environmental arsenic exposures, the data amply demonstrate the need to consider neurotoxicity as a key concern in risk assessment of inorganic arsenic exposure.
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PMID:Long-term consequences of arsenic poisoning during infancy due to contaminated milk powder. 1707 81

Urban and rural areas may have different levels of environmental contamination and different potential sources of exposure. Many metals, i.e., arsenic (As), lead (Pb), and mercury (Hg), have well-documented negative neurological effects, and the developing fetus and young children are particularly at risk. Using a database of mother and child pairs, three areas were identified: a rural area with no increased prevalence of mental retardation and developmental delay (MR/DD) (Area A), and a rural area (Area B) and an urban area (Area C) with significantly higher prevalence of MR/DD in children as compared to the state-wide average. Areas were mapped and surface soil samples were collected from nodes of a uniform grid. Samples were analyzed for As, barium (Ba), beryllium (Be), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), Pb, manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), and Hg concentrations and for soil toxicity, and correlated to identify potential common sources. ArcGIS was used to determine distances between sample locations and industrial facilities, which were correlated with both metal concentrations and soil toxicity. Results indicated that all metal concentrations (except Be and Hg) in Area C were significantly greater than those in Areas A and B (p< or =0.0001) and that Area C had fewer correlations between metals suggesting more varied sources of metals than in rural areas. Area C also had a large number of facilities whose distances were significantly correlated with metals, particularly Cr (maximum r=0.33; p=0.0002), and with soil toxicity (maximum r=0.25; p=0.007) over a large spatial scale. Arsenic was not associated with distance to any facility and may have a different anthropogenic, or natural source. In contrast to Area C, both rural areas had lower concentrations of metals, lower soil toxicity, and a small number of facilities with significant associations between distance and soil metals.
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PMID:Soil metal concentrations and toxicity: associations with distances to industrial facilities and implications for human health. 1915 49

Determining sources of neurotoxic metals in rural and urban soils is important for mitigating human exposure. Surface soil from four areas with significant clusters of mental retardation and developmental delay (MR/DD) in children, and one control site were analyzed for nine metals and characterized by soil type, climate, ecological region, land use and industrial facilities using readily available GIS-based data. Kriging, principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA) were used to identify commonalities of metal distribution. Three MR/DD areas (one rural and two urban) had similar soil types and significantly higher soil metal concentrations. PCA and CA results suggested that Ba, Be and Mn were consistently from natural sources; Pb and Hg from anthropogenic sources; and As, Cr, Cu, and Ni from both sources. Arsenic had low commonality estimates, was highly associated with a third PCA factor, and had a complex distribution, complicating mitigation strategies to minimize concentrations and exposures.
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PMID:Identifying natural and anthropogenic sources of metals in urban and rural soils using GIS-based data, PCA, and spatial interpolation. 1936 2