Arsenic

Type: Essential Mineral
Periodic Element: (As)
RDA: The average person’s intake is about 10–50 µg/day. 10 parts per billion (ppb) Acceptable amount in drinking water according to World Health Organization.
Importance- To Body:
Toxin at high levels.
Some evidence indicates that arsenic is an essential trace mineral in birds (chickens), and in mammals (rats, hamsters, and goats). However, the biological function is not known.
Distribution- In Body:
The organs of the body that are usually affected by arsenic poisoning are the lungs, skin, kidneys, and liver.
Excess Effects:
headaches, confusion, severe diarrhea, drowsiness developing into convulsions, leukonychia striata – Mees’s lines, or Aldrich-Mees’s lines, diarrhea, vomiting, vomiting blood, blood in the urine, cramping muscles, hair loss, stomach pain and more convulsions.
Arsenic has been linked to reproductive epigenetic changes, heritable changes in gene expression that occur without changes in DNA sequence. These include DNA methylation, histone modification, and RNA interference.
Deficiency Effects:
None listed
Sources Food:
Leafy Vegetables, Rice, Apple Juice, Grape Juice, Mushrooms, Seafood
Values about 1000 µg are not unusual following consumption of fish or mushrooms, but there is little danger in eating fish because this arsenic compound is nearly non-toxic.
Sources Environmental/Geographic:
Naturally occurring sources of human exposure include volcanic ash, weathering of minerals and ores, and mineralized groundwater. Arsenic is also found in food, water, soil, and air. Arsenic is absorbed by all plants, but is more concentrated in leafy vegetables, rice, apple and grape juice, and seafood. An additional route of exposure is inhalation of atmospheric gases and dusts.
Supplemental information: