Arsenic speciation varies with type of rice

摘要

Rice can be grouped into two types, depending on the form of arsenic in the grain, says Yam-ily Zavala, a research associate in John Duxbury's laboratory at Cornell University. In two new papers published in ES&T (3856-3860; 3861-3866), the researchers report that as arsenic levels rise, U.S. rice contains more methylated arsenic, the less toxic form, whereas rice grown in Europe and Asia contains the more toxic inorganic arsenic. Zavala noticed a trend in her data from a market-basket study of U.S. rice. When rice contained low levels of arsenic, the dominant form was inorganic arsenite. As arsenic concentrations increased, the dominant form became dimethyl arsinic acid (DMA).