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Introduction Arsenic, a well-known toxic element, has become one of the biggest causes for clinical concerns among elemental toxicities. Arsenicosis has been reported from many regions of the country, especially on exposure induced by ground water contamination. The clinical effects of chronic arsenic toxicity are generally varied and its timely diagnosis and management pose a big challenge. Methodology Our study reports analysis of blood arsenic levels in a pan-India cohort of 205,530 including 111,737 males and 93,793 females respectively. The cohort included all age groups from infants to old adults. Arsenic levels were analyzed using the analytical platform of ICP-MS touted to be the gold standard for elemental analysis. Result Blood arsenic levels of ≥ 5 μg/L were considered high in our study. The total frequency of high arsenic cases detected in the study is 1.37%. The frequency in males was 1.47% and in females it was detected to be 1.25%. Also, maximum cases of high arsenic levels were detected to be from the state of Kerala and in cities from Mumbai. Conclusion Very few studies have recorded the frequency of high arsenic levels in Indians as well as its average blood levels in a pan-India cohort. Our study has made a pilot attempt to highlight the same to generate awareness about this elemental menace in the Indian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Variations in hemoglobin structure as well as number of globin chains give rise to a wide spectrum of heritable disorders. As such, their detection is significant from epidemiological perspective, especially in India in which there is a large multi-cultural population with distinct geographic distribution. Although a few variants present severe clinical symptoms in homozygotes, co-existence of heterozygous mutants can lead to deleterious conditions. The aim of the present study is to provide an overview on the prevalence of different hemoglobinopathies among Asian Indians. Design and methods A large cohort of samples from all regions of India was analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) ( n = 25,297) and capillary electrophoresis (CE) ( n = 21,219). Results Using HPLC, 8029 hemoglobin variants were detected. HbS trait was detected at the highest frequency (33.03%), principally from the Chattisgarh region. Using CE, 6524 variants were detected. HbS trait, again, represented the most common mutation (25.67%). A total of 40 variants including compound heterozygous cases were detected by HPLC and CE. Conclusions Our report is one of the few to analyze a large cohort and report on the spectrum of hemoglobin variants in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]