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Contribution of breast milk and formula to arsenic exposure during the first year of life in a US prospective cohort

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 26, pages 452–457 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Arsenic is a carcinogen that can also affect the cardiac, respiratory, neurological and immune systems. Children have higher dietary arsenic exposure than adults owing to their more restricted diets and greater intake per unit body mass. We evaluated the potential contributions of breast milk and formula to arsenic exposure throughout the first year of life for 356 infants in the prospective New Hampshire Birth Cohort Study (NHBCS) using infant diets reported by telephone at 4, 8 and 12 months of age; measured household water arsenic concentrations; and literature data. Based on our central-tendency models, population-wide geometric mean (GM) estimated arsenic exposures in the NHBCS were relatively low, decreasing from 0.1 μg/kg/day at 4 months of age to 0.07 μg/kg/day at 12 months of age. At all three time points, exclusively formula-fed infants had GM arsenic exposures ~8 times higher than exclusively breastfed infants owing to arsenic in both tap water and formula powder. Estimated maximum exposures reached 9 μg/kg/day among exclusively formula-fed infants in households with high tap water arsenic (80 μg/l). Overall, modeled arsenic exposures via breast milk and formula were low throughout the first year of life, unless formula was prepared with arsenic-contaminated tap water.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the participants and staff members of the New Hampshire Birth Cohort Study and members of the Cottingham Laboratory for their assistance. Archana Ramanujan and David Fried conducted the medical record reviews for infant body weights. Patricia Fabian and three anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on a draft manuscript. This publication was supported in part by grants P01 ES022832 and P20 ES018175 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and RD83459901 and RD83544201 from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Contents are solely the responsibility of the grantee and do not necessarily represent the official views of the US EPA. Further, the US EPA does not endorse the purchase of any commercial products or services mentioned in the publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center at Dartmouth, Hanover, NH, USA

    Courtney C Carignan, Margaret R Karagas, Tracy Punshon, Diane Gilbert-Diamond & Kathryn L Cottingham

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

    Courtney C Carignan, Tracy Punshon & Kathryn L Cottingham

  3. Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Courtney C Carignan

  4. Department of Epidemiology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, NH, USA

    Margaret R Karagas & Diane Gilbert-Diamond

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  1. Courtney C Carignan
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Correspondence to Kathryn L Cottingham.

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Carignan, C., Karagas, M., Punshon, T. et al. Contribution of breast milk and formula to arsenic exposure during the first year of life in a US prospective cohort. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 26, 452–457 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2015.69

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2015.69

Keywords

  • breastfeeding
  • child
  • cohort studies
  • diet
  • environmental exposure
  • infant formula

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