White Wine and Beer Are Sources of Arsenic (LiveScience)

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A Dartmouth study indicates that white wine, beer, and Brussels sprouts can be “major sources of the toxic metal arsenic,” according to the news website LiveScience.

Researchers studied the diets of 852 New Hampshire residents and analyzed the levels of arsenic in their toenails, LiveScience reports. The study took into account amounts of arsenic in the subjects’ drinking water, which is considered the most significant source of arsenic in most people’s diets, according to LiveScience.

“Of the 120 foods the researchers looked at, four turned out to significantly raise people’s arsenic levels: beer, white wine (and to a lesser extent, red wine), Brussels sprouts, and dark-meat fish such as salmon, tuna and sardines, according to the study, published … in the Nutrition Journal,” writes LiveScience.

Study author Kathryn Cottingham, a professor of biological sciences and a professor in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Graduate Program, tells LiveScience that it is not clear what level of concentration found in toenail samples would indicate an unsafe level of arsenic.

Read the full story, published 11/25/13 by LiveScience.

 

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