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What are the total arsenic and abio-arsenic and their differences?

June 19, 2018
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Definition and differences of total arsenic and abio-arsenic

Total Arsenic Abio-arsenic
General 
  • There are two types of arsenic that can found in water, food, air, and soil which are organic and inorganic arsenic compounds (U.S. Food & Drug Administration, 2017).
  • Long term exposure to arsenic will cause lung, skin, bladder, as well as skin lesions (Maria et al., 2017).
Definitions
  • Organic and inorganic arsenic together are referred as total arsenic (U.S. Food & Drug Administration, 2017).
  • Abio-arsenic is also known as inorganic arsenic (iAs) is a metalloid which is distributed in nature (Lamia, & Micheal, 2007).
Differences
  • Organic forms of arsenic such as arsenobetaine and arsenocholine are relatively nontoxic to human (Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry, 2011).
  • iAs have a great carcinogenic potential that is harmful to human (Lamia, & Micheal, 2007)·
  • iAs are significantly more toxic than other arsenic species (Ari, 2007).
  • In fish and seafood, the total arsenic levels of  arsenobetaine and arsenocholine, known as “Fish Arsenic” are higher than iAs (Calle et. al., 2011).
  • In fish and seafood, iAs levels are low as there are more organic arsenic than inorganic arsenic (Calle et. al., 2011).
  • Total arsenic content is measured by acid digestion, by sample preparation and hydride generation atomic absorption spectroscopy (HG-AAS) (Herce-Pagliai et. al., 2002).
  • In order to measure inorganic arsenic content, HPLC, a separation technique is used to separate arsenic species.  (Toni, Roser & Jose, 2017).

 

References

Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (2011). Arsenic Toxicity: What is Arsenic?

Ari, S. L. (2007). Organic versus Inorganic Arsenic in Herbal Kelp Supplements. Environmental Health Perspectives, 115(12), A575. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.10472

Calle, M. B., Baer, I., Emteborg, H., Charoud-Got, J., Robouch, P., Verbist, I., & Kortsen, B. (2011). IMEP-112: Total and inorganic arsenic in wheat, vegetable food and algae. Luxembourg, Belgium: Publications Office of the European Union.

Herce-Pagliai, C., Moreno, I., Gonzalez, G., Repetto, M., & Camean, A. M. (2002). Determination of total arsenic, inorganic and organic arsenic in wine. Food Additives and Contaminants, 19(6), 542-546. https://doi.org/10.1080/02652030110113762

Lamia, B., & Micheal, P. W. (2007). Inorganic Arsenic and Human Prostate Cancer. Environmental Health Perspectives, 116(2), 158-164. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.10423

Maria, B., Vicenta, D., Yiannis, F., & Dinoraz, V. (2017). Determination of Inorganic Arsenic in a Wide Range of Food Matrices using Hydride Generation – Atomic Absorption Spectrometry. Journal of Visualized Experiments, (127), 55953. https://doi.org/10.3791/55953

Toni, L., Roser, R., & Jose, F. (2017). Inorganic Arsenic Determinationin Food: A Review of Analytical Proposals and Quality Assessment over the Last Six Years. Applied Spectroscopy, 71(1), 25-69. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003702816652374

U.S. Food & Drug Administration. (2017). Arsenic.

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