A new study adds to arsenic’s notoriety as a cancer-causer and favored murder mystery poison, suggesting it also plays a role in diabetes. In today’s Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers report that exposure to low levels of inorganic arsenic — an industrial pollutant that is also found naturally in rocks and soil — in drinking water may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. For years, it’s been known that arsenic is linked to cancer. At high levels of exposure it is also connected to cardiovascular health and diabetes, but that evidence comes from regions where arsenic levels in drinking water and the environment are very high, says study author Ana Navas-Acien, an assistant professor of environmental health science at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who ticks off highly contaminated regions, including Bangladesh, Taiwan, Inner Mongolia and Chile. More
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