Arsenic (As) accumulation in different genotypes of indica rice (Oryza sativa L.) and health risk assessment based on inorganic As

To reveal differences in arsenic (As) accumulation among indica rice cultivars and assess the human health risks arising from inorganic arsenic (iAs) intake via rice consumption, a total of 320 field indica rice samples and corresponding soil samples were collected from Fujian Province in China. The results showed that available soil As (0.03 to 3.83 mg/kg) showed a statistically significant positive correlation with total soil As (0.10 to 19.45 mg/kg). The inorganic As content in brown rice was between 0.001 and 0.316 mg/kg. Among the cultivars, ten brown rice samples (3.13%) exceeded the maximum contaminant level (MCL) of iAs in food of 0.2 mg/kg in China. The estimated daily intake (EDI) and calculated individual incremental lifetime cancer risk (ILCR) ranged from 0.337 µg/day to 106.60 µg/day and from 8.18 × 10–6 to 2.59 × 10–3, respectively. Surprisingly, the average EDI and the EDIs of 258 (80.63%) brown rice samples were higher than the maximum daily intake (MDI) of 10 µg/day in drinking water as set by the National Research Council. The mean ILCR associated with iAs was 54.3 per 100,000, which exceeds the acceptable upper limit (AUL) of 10 per 100,000 set by the USEPA. Notably, the cultivars Y-Liang-You 1 and Shi-Ji 137 exhibited significantly higher mean ILCRs compared to the AUL and other cultivars, indicating that they pose more serious cancer risks to the local population. Finally, this study demonstrated that the cultivars Yi-Xiang 2292 and Quan-Zhen 10 were the optimal cultivars to mitigate risks associated with iAs to human health from rice consumption.