Status of urinary porphyrins and inverse correlation of porphyrins with serum B vitamins in arsenic endemic area of West Bengal, India

Regional Occupational Health Centre (Eastern), (Indian Council of Medical Research), Block DP,

Sector V, Salt Lake, Kolkata-700 091, India

E-mail : ashit_mukherjee@yahoo.com

Department of Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry Section, Jadavpur University, Kolkata-700 032, India

Manuscript received 27 June 2017, revised 06 November 2017, accepted 07 November 2017

Chronic arsenic toxicity through drinking water is still one of the major problems across the world. Bangladesh and India (particularly the state of West Bengal) are the worst affected countries with such problem. Millions of people all over the world are affected by arsenic related diseases. In our study, concentration of ground water arsenic, urine arsenic, hair arsenic and nail arsenic from adult individuals were measured from exposed areas of West Bengal, India respectively by flow injection atomic spectroscopy and transverselyheated graphite atomiser techniques. Porphyrins, uroporphyrin III, heptacarboxyporphyrin I, hexacarboxyporphyrin I, pentacarboxyporphyrin I, coproporphyrin III in urine were analysed separately by HPLC using fluorescence detector as well as level of vitamin B₆ , vitamin B₉ and vitamin B₁₂ were carried out in serum samples among the population in the selected area in North 24-Parganas, West Bengal, India. Concentration of uro III, hepta I, copro III and copro III/uro III were observed to increase irrespective of gender and also in total; whereas level of B vitamins were found to decrease with increase in exposure to arsenic contaminated drinking water from underground sources. The difference of vitamin B₆ (p < 0.01) between the population exposed to 50 µg/L arsenic in drinking water was found to be significant. Significant difference was also noticed in case of uro III (p < 0.05), copro III (p < 0.01) and copro III/uro III (p < 0.05) between two exposure categories. This study demonstrated increasing tendency in urinary porphyrins as well as inverse relationships of serum B vitamins with increased water arsenic concentration.