Abstract
Now, there is a decreasing trend for the prevalence rate of Kaschin–Beck disease (KBD) in most parts of China, but the disease is still active and severe in the Tibetan Plateau for some reason. To further explore the role of selenium in the occurrence of KBD, We collected samples including drinking water, cultivated topsoil, Highland Barley grains, and tsamba in Rangtang County and Aba County, Sichuan Province and determined concentrations of selenium by Hydride Generation Atomic Fluorescence Spectrometry. Levels of selenium in the environment were analyzed in detail. Selenium in the soil–plant–food system and their relationship with prevalence rate of KBD were also discussed. The results indicate: (a) the levels of environmental selenium are very low and the study area belongs to a selenium-deficient ecological landscape; (b) the KBD becomes much more severe with decreasing environmental selenium under the selenium-deficient condition. Namely, the lower the environmental selenium is, the more severe the disease is; (c) soil selenium deficiency plays a critical role for the prevalence of local KBD, and more factors inducing selenium deficiency should be more concerned in the future.
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Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40671008) and the National 11th Five-Year Plan scientific and technological issues (No. 2007BAI25B01). We also thank the local government of Rangtang County and Aba County, Sichuan Province for their help during the field investigations which are carried out in early September 2007 and June 2009. Finally, special thanks are due to all the reviewers for improvement of the manuscript.
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An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10653-011-9446-7.
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Zhang, B., Yang, L., Wang, W. et al. Environmental selenium in the Kaschin–Beck disease area, Tibetan Plateau, China. Environ Geochem Health 33, 495–501 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-010-9366-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-010-9366-y