Abstract

Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, is located near two closed gold mines. Elevated arsenic concentrations reported in fish are a public health concern. We collected 180 samples of three species of commonly consumed fish in 2013–2018 and analyzed arsenic species, including inorganic arsenic (As(III) and As(V)), monomethylarsonate (MMA), dimethylarsinic acid (DMA), and arsenobetaine. The average total arsenic concentration in fish muscle tissue was 2.30 ± 1.72 µg/g dry weight, and that in burbot liver tissue was 3.16 ± 2.49 µg/g dry weight. Nontoxic arsenobetaine was the main arsenic species in fish muscle (mean = 58.6 ± 34.5%), whereas DMA was the predominant species in burbot liver (mean = 76.6 ± 21.6%). On average, inorganic arsenic species accounted for less than 20% of the arsenic detected in fish. Data on the consumption of locally caught fish were collected from 1611 residents in Yellowknife in 2017 and 2018, including 1417 general residents and 194 members of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. We evaluated the health risks from inorganic arsenic exposure using Monte Carlo simulations. Our results indicated that there were negligible non-cancer health risks, and the cancer risk was below the baseline cancer risk level of arsenic exposure among the Canadian general population.

摘要

加拿大西北地区的耶洛奈夫，靠近两个封闭的金矿。鱼中砷的浓度升高是公共卫生问题。我们在2013–2018年收集了三种常见鱼类的180种样品，并分析了砷的种类，包括无机砷（As（III）和As（V）），一甲基ate酸酯（MMA），二甲基ar酸（DMA）和砷甜菜碱。鱼肌肉组织中的平均总砷浓度为2.30±1.72 µg / g干重，而江鳕肝脏组织中的平均总砷浓度为3.16±2.49 µg / g干重。无毒的砷甜菜碱是鱼肉中的主要砷种类（平均值= 58.6±34.5％），而DMA是Burbot肝脏中的主要砷形态（平均值= 76.6±21.6％）。平均而言，无机砷物种占鱼类中检测到的砷的不到20％。2017年和2018年从耶洛奈夫的1611名居民中收集了当地捕捞鱼的消费数据，其中包括1417名普通居民和耶洛奈夫第一个原住民国家的194名成员。我们使用蒙特卡洛模拟评估了无机砷暴露对健康的危害。我们的结果表明，加拿大普通人群中的非癌症健康风险可忽略不计，且癌症风险低于砷暴露的基准癌症风险水平。