Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 May;94(5):1551-1560.
doi: 10.1007/s00204-020-02676-8. Epub 2020 Feb 17.

Uranium in drinking water: a public health threat

Geir Bjørklund  1 , Yuliya Semenova  2   3 , Lyudmila Pivina  2   3 , Maryam Dadar  4 , Md Mostafizur Rahman  5   6 , Jan Aaseth  7 , Salvatore Chirumbolo  8   9
Affiliations
Review

Uranium in drinking water: a public health threat

Geir Bjørklund et al. Arch Toxicol. 2020 May.

Abstract

Uranium (U) has no known essential biological functions. Furthermore, it is well known for its toxicity, radioactivity, and carcinogenic potency. Impacts on human health due to U exposure have been studied extensively by many researchers. Chronic exposure to low-level U isotopes (radionuclides) may be interlinked with cancer etiology and at high exposure levels, also kidney disease. Other important issues covered U and fertilizers, and also U in soils or human tissues as an easily measurable indicator element in a pathophysiological examination. Furthermore, phosphate fertilization is known as the important source of contamination with U in the agricultural land, mainly due to contamination in the phosphate rock applied for fertilizer manufacture. Therefore, long-term usage of U-bearing fertilizers can substantially increase the concentration of U in fertilized soils. It should also be noted that U is an active redox catalyst for the reaction between DNA and H2O2. This review is aimed to highlight a series on various hydro-geochemical aspects in different water sources and focused on the comparison of different U contents in the drinking water sources and presentation of data in relation to health issues.

Keywords: DNA; Groundwater; Health; Indicator element; Soils; Uranium.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Ahmed H, Young S, Shaw G (2012) Solubility and mobility of thorium and uranium in soils: the effect of soil properties on Th and U concentrations in soil solution. Geophys Res Abstr 14(EGU2012-2994). https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2012/EGU2012-2994.pdf . Accessed 10 Feb 2020
    1. Alvarado JC, Balsiger B, Röllin S, Jakob A, Burger M (2014) Radioactive and chemical contamination of the water resources in the former uranium mining and milling sites of Mailuu Suu (Kyrgyzstan). J Environ Radioact 138:1–10 - DOI
    1. Ansoborlo E, Lebaron-Jacobs L, Prat O (2015) Uranium in drinking-water: a unique case of guideline value increases and discrepancies between chemical and radiochemical guidelines. Environ Int 77:1–4 - PubMed - DOI
    1. Arzuaga X, Rieth SH, Bathija A, Cooper GS (2010) Renal effects of exposure to natural and depleted uranium: a review of the epidemiologic and experimental data. J Toxicol Environ Health B Crit Rev 13(7–8):527–545 - PubMed - DOI
    1. Atkins ML, Santos IR, Perkins A, Maher DT (2016) Dissolved radon and uranium in groundwater in a potential coal seam gas development region (Richmond River Catchment, Australia). J Environ Radioact 154:83–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvrad.2016.01.014 - DOI - PubMed

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources