Urinary arsenic profiles reveal exposures to inorganic arsenic from private drinking water supplies in Cornwall, UK

Private water supplies (PWS) in Cornwall, South West England exceeded the current WHO guidance value and UK prescribed concentration or value (PCV) for arsenic of 10 μg/L in 5% of properties surveyed (n = 497). In this follow-up study, the first of its kind in the UK, volunteers (n = 207) from 127 households who used their PWS for drinking, provided urine and drinking water samples for total As determination by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and urinary As speciation by high performance liquid chromatography ICP-MS (HPLC-ICP-MS). Arsenic concentrations exceeding 10 μg/L were found in the PWS of 10% of the volunteers. Unadjusted total urinary As concentrations were poorly correlated (Spearman’s ρ = 0.36 (P < 0.001)) with PWS As largely due to the use of spot urine samples and the dominance of arsenobetaine (AB) from seafood sources. However, the osmolality adjusted sum, U-As(IMM), of urinary inorganic As species, arsenite (As(III)) and arsenate (As(V)), and their metabolites, methylarsonate (MA) and dimethylarsinate (DMA), was found to strongly correlate (Spearman’s ρ: 0.62 (P < 0.001)) with PWS As, indicating private water supplies as the dominant source of inorganic As exposure in the study population of PWS users.