Dartmouth Medical School investigators are learning more about
how low doses of arsenic, such as the levels found in drinking
water in many areas of the United States, affect human
physiology. In a paper published online on Dec. 2 in the journal
Chemical Research in Toxicology, the researchers report that
three different steroid hormones all show similar responses to
arsenic, suggesting a broader effect and a common mechanism of
arsenic on how these hormones function. "Since most of the
health consequences of exposure to arsenic - various cancers,
diabetes, heart and vascular disease, reproductive and
developmental effects, etc. - involve these same steroid
receptors, we think that disruption of their normal function
could explain, in large part, how arsenic can influence so many
disease risks," says Joshua Hamilton, one of the authors on this
study and the director of the Center for Environmental Health
Sciences at Dartmouth and Dartmouth's Superfund Basic Research
Program on Toxic Metals. Hamilton's laborat