转自艾龙饮水机：

以下引用英文原文：

Not everyone who is exposed to an infectious disease, even the widely-feared new "swine" flu (H1N1), gets sick. And many people who do come down with the flu or another illness get over it without much trouble. While a lot of factors can be at work, from good nutrition to physical fitness, a new study suggests an all-too-common toxin in the water you drink could play a role in whether an H1N1 infection makes you seriously ill.

According to scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and Dartmouth Medical School, the ability to mount an immune response to H1NI infection, a form of influenza A, can be significantly compromised by even low levels of arsenic exposure that commonly occur through drinking contaminated well water.

Respiratory infections with influenza A virus are a worldwide health problem and kill about 36,000 people each year according to the CDC. The recent outbreak of a type of influenza A known as H1N1, or "swine flu", has killed over 70 Mexicans so far and at least six Americans. The fact that Mexico has large areas of very high arsenic in well water -- and these include the locations where H1N1 first appeared -- intrigued the MBL and Dartmouth research team.

"One thing that did strike us, when we heard about the recent H1N1 outbreak, is [that] Mexico has large areas of very high arsenic in their well water, including the areas where the flu first cropped up. We don‘t know that the Mexicans who got the flu were drinking high levels of arsenic, but it‘s an intriguing notion that this may have contributed," Joshua Hamilton, the MBL‘s Chief Academic and Scientific Officer and a senior scientist in the MBL‘s Bay Paul Center, said in a statement to the media.

Immune response seriously hampered by arsenic exposure
In a study just published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, Hamilton and his colleagues reported on their study of mice that ingested 100 ppb (parts per billion) of arsenic in their drinking water for five weeks and then were exposed to H1N1.

"When a normal person or mouse is infected with the flu, they immediately develop an immune response in which immune cells rush to the lungs and produce chemicals that help fight the infection," Hamilton stated in a press release. But in the lab animals exposed to arsenic in their water, something was clearly amiss. The researchers found that the animals‘ immune response to H1N1 infection was initially very weak. But, several days later, the rodents‘ immune systems produced a reaction that was too strong and too late.

"There was a massive infiltration of immune cells to the lungs and a massive inflammatory response, which led to bleeding and damage in the lung," Hamilton said in the media statement. He also noted that morbidity from the influenza infection was found to be significantly higher for the arsenic-exposed mice than the control animals who had not consumed arsenic-tainted water.

Hamilton and his research staff have been studying the effects of arsenic for years. They‘ve found that arsenic exposure not only disrupts the immune system but also disrupts the endocrine system, causing unusually broad hormonal upheavals.

"Most chemicals that disrupt hormone pathways target just one, such as the estrogen pathway," Hamilton explained in the media statement. "But arsenic disrupts the pathways of all five steroid hormone receptors (estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, glucocorticoids, and mineralocorticoids), as well as several other hormone pathways. You can imagine that just this one effect could play a role in cancer, diabetes, heart disease, reproductive and developmental disorders -- all the diseases that have a strong hormonal component."

"We don‘t yet know how arsenic disrupts either system at the molecular level. But once we know how it affects one system, we will have a pretty good idea of how it affects the other systems as well," he added. Currently, Hamilton‘s lab is working on understanding the unusual dual effect arsenic has on the endocrine system. Very low amounts of arsenic stimulate or enhance hormone responses but at doses just slightly higher, like those found in drinking water, it appears to suppress those hormone responses. "Our principal focus is to figure out this switch. We think that will help us understand why arsenic does what it does in the body," Hamilton stated.

He explained that for arsenic to have health consequences, it requires exposure day after day, year after year, such as through drinking water -- and that‘s exactly the kind of exposure far too many Americans have to the toxin. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims 10 parts per billion (ppb) of arsenic in drinking water is "safe". However, according to Hamilton, concentrations of 100 ppb and higher are commonly found in well water in many regions of the country including Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Florida, and large parts of the upper Midwest, the Southwest, and the Rocky Mountains.

research suggests the EPA‘s supposedly "safe" level of arsenic allowed in water supplies for public consumption isn‘t safe at all and could be causing a host of health problems, including high blood pressure and artery-clogging atherosclerosis. What‘s more, when the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) analyzed data compiled by the EPA, the group‘s most conservative estimates based on the data indicated that more than 34 million Americans were drinking tap water supplied by systems containing average levels of arsenic that posed unacceptable cancer risks. Now it appears another serious health problem -- a higher susceptibility to a serious case of "swine flu" -- can be added to that list of arsenic-in-drinking-water linked worries.

翻译：

谁是不是每个人都暴露在传染病，即使是被广泛担心新的“猪”流感（H1N1）的，生病了。谁，很多人是怎样得来的流感或其他疾病也得到下跌逾没有太多的麻烦。虽然有很多因素可以在工作，从良好的营养身体健康，一项新的研究表明，一种太在水，你喝可以发挥作用，是否会让你H1N1病毒感染重病共同毒素。

据在海洋生物实验室（MBL）的科学家在伍兹霍尔，麻省和达特茅斯医学院的能力发动的免疫应答H1NI感染，甲型流感的形式，可以显着而受到损害，甚至水平低砷暴露这通常发生通过饮用受污染的井水。

流感病毒呼吸道感染是一个全球健康问题，约有36,000人死亡按劳分配CDC的一年。一类流感的H1N1病毒，或“猪流感”已知类型近期爆发，已造成70多墨西哥人到目前为止，至少有6名美国人。事实上，墨西哥在井水砷含量很高，大面积的 - 件，其中包括H1N1病毒的地点首次出现 - 好奇的海洋生物实验和达特茅斯大学的研究小组。

“有一件事是没有袭击我们，当我们听到最近H1N1病毒的爆发，[是]墨西哥已在大面积的井水非常高砷，包括地区，禽流感{dy}次出现了。我们不知道，墨西哥人谁得到了流感喝高砷的水平，但它是一个有趣的概念，这可能是造成“约书亚汉密尔顿的海洋生物实验所的首席学术和科学主任，在海洋生物实验湾保中心的高级科学家，在一份声明中说：给媒体。



免疫反应严重妨碍了砷
在公正的环境与健康展望，汉密尔顿和他的同事发表的一项研究报告了其对小鼠的研究，摄取100小港（十亿分之）中砷的饮用水了五个星期，然后暴露于H1N1病毒。

“当一个正常的人或鼠标与感病毒，他们立即形成免疫反应中，免疫细胞就会到肺部，产生化学物质，有助于对抗感染，”汉密尔顿说，在一份新闻稿中。但是，暴露了其水砷的实验动物，事情显然不对劲。研究人员发现，这些动物的免疫反应H1N1病毒感染的最初非常薄弱。但是，几天后，老鼠的免疫系统产生了反应过于强烈，太晚。

“有一个庞大的免疫细胞浸润到肺部和大规模的炎症反应，导致出血和肺损伤，”汉密尔顿说，在媒体的声明。他还指出，从流感发病率被发现明显的高砷暴露控制谁比没有饮用砷污染的水中动物小鼠。

汉密尔顿和他的研究人员一直在研究多年的砷影响。他们发现，砷暴露不仅破坏免疫系统，而且还扰乱内分泌系统，造成非常广阔的xxx的动荡。

“大多数xx的化学物质破坏的目标只是途径，如雌xx途径之一，”汉密尔顿在媒体上发表声明解释。 “但是，砷扰乱了所有五个类固醇xx受体的途径（雌xx，睾丸xx，孕xx，糖皮质xx和盐皮质xx），以及其他一些xx途径。你可以想像，仅这一个可以发挥作用，在癌症，糖尿病的作用，心脏疾病，生殖和发育障碍 - 所有的疾病，有很强的xx组成部分。“

“我们还不知道如何破坏砷在分子水平上两种制度。但是，一旦我们知道它如何影响到一个系统中，我们将有一个相当不错的主意它是如何影响其他系统，以及，”他补充说。目前，汉密尔顿的实验室是理解的不寻常的双重影响砷工作已在内分泌系统。砷量非常低或增加xx刺激的反应，但剂量要略高一点像饮用水中发现的，它似乎以制止这种xx的反应。 “我们的主要重点是要弄清楚此开关。我们认为，这将有助于我们了解砷做什么，为什么它在体内没有，”汉密尔顿说。

他解释说，砷有健康的后果，它需要接触日复一日，年复一年，如通过饮水 - 而这正是暴露太多美国人的一种毒素。美国环境保护署（EPA）索赔10饮用水中每十亿分之一（ppb砷）部分水是“安全”。然而，根据汉密尔顿，100小港浓度和较高的通常存在于井水中，包括马萨诸塞州，新罕布什尔州，缅因州，佛罗里达州国许多地区和中西部大部分地区，西南，落基山脉。

研究表明，美国环保局的所谓的“安全”供水的允许公共消费的砷含量是不是安全的根本，可以造成的健康问题，包括高血压和动脉阻塞的动脉粥样硬化。更重要的是，当非盈利自然资源保护委员会（NRDC）分析了美国环境保护局，该集团的最保守的估计的基础上指出，3400多万美国人饮用自来水含有砷的平均水平，供水系统的数据收集的数据这造成不可接受的癌症风险。现在看来另一个严重的健康问题 - 高敏感性的“猪流感”严重的情况 - 可以添加到列表中的砷在直饮水相关的担忧。