A recent study published in PLoS Genetics this week indicates that women who whose water supplies were contaminated with arsenic during their pregnancies gave birth to children who manifested changes in their genetic expression such that they were more susceptible to cancer and other diseases later in life.
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The data were from studies of 32 mothers and their children in a province in Thailand that experienced heavy arsenic contamination from tin mining. Before you think that this is a situation that is far from happening to you, the researchers say that similar levels of arsenic are also found in many other regions, including the US Southwest.

The team found a collection of about 450 genes whose expression had been turned on or turned off in babies who had been exposed to arsenic while in the womb. That is, these genes had either become significantly more active (in most cases) or less active than in unexposed babies.

"We were looking to see whether we could have figured out that these babies were exposed in utero" just by using the gene expression screening on the stored blood samples, Samson says. "The answer was a resounding yes."

Further, the team found that a subset of just 11 of these genes could be used as a highly reliable test for determining whether babies had been born to mothers exposed to arsenic during pregnancy. Since blood samples are already taken routinely for medical tests this may provide an easier way of screening for such exposure.

Read more here.