Affiliations: Faculty of Biological Sciences, Department of Botany,
Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka-1342, Bangladesh | 1Graduate School of Natural Science & Technology,
Kanazawa University, Kakuma, Kanazawa 920-1192, Japan | 2Division of Soil Science, Bangladesh Rice Research
Institute (BRRI), Gazipur, Bangladesh
Abstract: Although the main source of arsenic to human body is ground water,
the use of arsenic contaminated ground water for irrigation gives rise to the
question whether arsenic uptake in crop plants could also be another potential
pathway of human exposure to arsenic. Arsenic content in straw, grain and husk
of rice is especially important as rice is the staple food for man and straw
and husk have been used as cattle feed. It was estimated that the daily intake
of arsenic in human body from rice (containing 0.40 mg As/kg, the highest
concentration of arsenic found in the present experiment in treatment
containing 40 mg As/kg soil) is 0.20 to 0.32 mg/day (as the average consumption
of rice by the people above five years old is between 400 and 650 gm/day)
whereas it is 0.20 mg/day from drinking water (as the recommended safe level
arsenic in drinking water is 0.05 mg As/l for Bangladesh and the average intake
of water by an adult is about four litres). This finding suggests that arsenic
intake in human body through rice could be a potential pathway in addition to
drinking water. Therefore, a hypothesis have been put forward that the human
beings have not been suffering from arsenicosis only from drinking water but
also from "Plant-Animal-Man" and some other food chain
pathways.
