{"doi":"10.1016/j.envpol.2026.128642","title":"Urinary arsenic speciation, methylation capacity, and growth outcomes in longitudinal mother–child pairs across pregnancy to preschool age: A single prenatal spot measurement poorly predicts children's arsenic profiles and growth","abstract":null,"journal":"Environmental Pollution","year":2026,"id":641352,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1667498,"name":"Jungmin Kwak","orcid":"0000-0002-0932-922X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1667499,"name":"Hosub Im","orcid":"0000-0002-6508-6402","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1667500,"name":"Yong Jin Lee","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":208401,"name":"Ju Hee Kim","orcid":"0000-0001-6586-7244","position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"Urinary arsenic speciation, methylation capacity, and growth outcomes in longitudinal mother–child pairs across pregnancy to preschool age: A single prenatal spot measurement poorly predicts children's arsenic profiles and growth","abstract":"In South Korea, high dietary consumption of seafood and rice renders total urinary arsenic (tAs) an unreliable proxy for toxic inorganic arsenic (iAs) owing to predominance of the toxicologically inert arsenobetaine (AsB). Longitudinal arsenic speciation data concurrently characterizing pregnant women, mothers, and preschool-aged children within the same cohort remain absent. This study utilized the LIFE-EPIC birth cohort (n = 200 mother-child pairs) to characterize five urinary arsenic species and methylation ratios via HPLC-ICP-MS at two time points: during pregnancy (gestational weeks 11-22) and postnatal follow-up (children aged 3-5 years). Associations with child growth were examined using multivariable linear regression and linear mixed models. Despite a geometric mean tAs of 117.72 μg/L in pregnant women- approximately 16-fold the value reported in U.S. pregnant women (7.32 μg/L; Chen et al., 2021)-iAs remained consistently low (1.57-1.80 μg/L) across all three groups, with AsB and dimethylarsinic acid (DMA) collectively accounting for over 95% of the speciation profile. Pregnant women demonstrated significantly lower primary methylation ratio (PMR) and higher secondary methylation ratio (SMR) than mothers, indicating enhanced methylation efficiency during gestation. Prenatal maternal arsenic concentrations were not correlated with children's arsenic profiles (|ρ| ≤ 0.139; all p > 0.05); all Benjamini-Hochberg-adjusted q > 0.05), whereas concurrent postpartum maternal-child correlations were significant across most species (ρ = 0.180-0.345; all q < 0.05), identifying shared household dietary environment as the primary determinant of child arsenic exposure. Species-specific child-to-mother ratios revealed dietary divergence: AsB ratios were below 1.0 (median = 0.636), while DMA and monomethylarsonic acid (MMA) ratios exceeded 1.0 (1.49 and 1.38, respectively). Neither prenatal arsenic speciation nor growth trajectories from birth to preschool age showed significant associations across any measured species. These findings demonstrate that arsenic speciation analysis is essential in high-seafood-consuming East Asian populations, and that at preschool age the concurrent postnatal dietary environment, rather than a single prenatal spot measurement, accounts for the majority of the observed variance in child arsenic body burden; the present design cannot exclude a contribution from in utero transfer.","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"42341531","pmcid":null,"openalex_id":"https://openalex.org/W7165785180","authors":[],"funders":[{"funder_name":"Kyung Hee University","grant_id":"KHU-20242267","title":null},{"funder_name":"Kyung Hee University","grant_id":"","title":null}],"total_grants":2,"fwci":0.0,"citation_percentile":0.77230936,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[],"oa_status":"closed","license":"https://doi.org/10.15223/policy-004","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S0269749126010122?httpAccept=text/xml","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S0269749126010122?httpAccept=text/plain","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2026.128642","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42341531","host_type":"repository"}],"fields_of_study":["Arsenic contamination and mitigation","Heavy Metal Exposure and Toxicity","Carbon and Quantum Dots Applications"],"mesh_terms":[],"keywords":["Arsenic","Arsenobetaine","Methylation","Pregnancy","Urinary system","Cohort","Offspring","biomonitoring","Dietary Exposure","Child Growth","Methylation Ratio","Arsenic Speciation","Mother–child Pairs"],"sdg_mappings":[{"sdg_number":0,"sdg_label":"Life below water"}],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-08-07T17:27:48.324913Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}