Compositonal Analysis of Potentially harmful Elements in Soils: Implications for Epidemiology and Kidney Disease

Jennifer McKinley, Ulrich Ofterdinger, Sherry Palmer, Chloe Floyd, Peter Atkinson, Damian Fogarty

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

A substantial proportion of aetiological risks for many cancers and chronic diseases remain unexplained. Using geochemical soil and stream water samples collected as part of the Tellus Project studies, current research is investigating naturally occurring background levels of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) in soils and stream sediments and their possible relationship with progressive chronic kidney disease (CKD). The Tellus geological mapping project, Geological Survey Northern Ireland, collected soil sediment and stream water samples on a grid of one sample site every 2 km2 across the rural areas of Northern Ireland resulting in an excess of 6800 soil sampling locations and more than 5800 locations for stream water sampling. Accumulation of several PTEs including arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead and mercury have been linked with human health and implicated in renal function decline. The hypothesis is that long-term exposure will result in cumulative exposure to PTEs and act as risk factor(s) for cancer and diabetes related CKD and its progression. The ‘bioavailable’ fraction of total PTE soil concentration depends on the ‘bioaccessible’ proportion through an exposure pathway. Recent work has explored this bioaccessible fraction for a range of PTEs across Northern Ireland. In this study the compositional nature of the multivariate geochemical PTE variables and bioaccessible data is explored to augment the investigation into the potential relationship between PTEs, bioaccessibility and disease data.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 20 Oct 2014
Event16th Annual Conference of the International Association for Mathematical Geosciences - New Delhi, India
Duration: 17 Oct 201420 Oct 2014

Conference

Conference16th Annual Conference of the International Association for Mathematical Geosciences
Country/TerritoryIndia
CityNew Delhi
Period17/10/201420/10/2014

Keywords

  • geochemistry
  • bioaccessibility
  • compositional data analysis, log-ratios, mapping

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Environmental Science
  • General Health Professions

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