Drinking-Water Nitrate, Methemoglobinemia, and Global Burden of Disease: A Discussion
By L. Fewtrell. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2004
638 citations recorded by the source corpus.
On behalf of the World Health Organization (WHO), I have undertaken a series of literature-based investigations examining the global burden of disease related to a number of environmental risk factors associated with drinking water. In this article I outline the investigation of drinking-water nitrate concentration and methemoglobinemia. The exposure assessment was based on levels of nitrate in drinking water greater than the WHO guideline value of 50 mg/L. No exposure–response relationship, however, could be identified that related drinking-water nitrate level to methemoglobinemia. Indeed, although it has previously been accepted that consumption of drinking water high in nitrates causes methemoglobinemia in infants, it appears now that nitrate may be one of a number of co-factors that play a sometimes complex role in causing the disease. I conclude that, given the apparently low incidence of possible water-related methemoglobinemia, the complex nature of the role of nitrates, and that of individual behavior, it is currently inappropriate to attempt to link illness rates with drinking-water nitrate levels.
Subfields: Molecular Biology, Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health, Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b8938726e36d21272b1c23eae5a26eb10668c760
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In Molecular Biology
In Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health
In Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine
Citations in the corpus
- Ecological and toxicological effects of inorganic nitrogen pollution in aquatic ecosystems: A global assessment. (2006, background): “…role in developing cancers of the digestive tract through their contribution to the bacterial formation of N-nitroso compounds (i.e., nitrosamines), which are among the most potent of the known carcinogens in mammals (Nash, 1993; Knobeloch et al., 2000;Wolfe and Patz, 2002; Fwetrell, 2004).”
- State-of-the-art lab chip sensors for environmental water monitoring (2011, background): “The elevated levels of nitrate in drinking water are related primarily to human health effects such as methemoglobinemia (infantile cyanosis), cancer, neural tube effects, or spontaneous abortions (Fewtrell 2004).”
- Workgroup Report: Drinking-Water Nitrate and Health—Recent Findings and Research Needs (2005, neutral): “Recently, the role of nitrate exposure alone in causing methemoglobinemia has been questioned (Avery 1999; Fewtrell 2004; Hanukoglu and Danon 1996).”