Health and environmental impacts of drinking water choices in Barcelona, Spain: A modelling study.

Quantitative evidence of health and environmental tradeoffs between individuals' drinking water choices is needed to inform decision-making. We evaluated health and environmental impacts of drinking water choices using health impact and life cycle assessment (HIA, LCA) methodologies applied to data from Barcelona, Spain. We estimated the health and environmental impacts of four drinking water scenarios for the Barcelona population: 1) currently observed drinking water sources; a complete shift to 2) tap water; 3) bottled water; or 4) filtered tap water. We estimated the local bladder cancer incidence attributable to trihalomethane (THM) exposure, based on survey data on drinking water sources, THM levels, published exposure-response functions, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) from the Global Burden of Disease 2017. We estimated the environmental impacts (species lost/year, and resources use) from waste generation and disposal, use of electricity, chemicals, and plastic to produce tap or bottled drinking water using LCA. The scenario where the entire population consumed tap water yielded the lowest environmental impact on ecosystems and resources, while the scenario where the entire population drank bottled water yielded the highest impacts (1400 and 3500 times higher for species lost and resource use, respectively). Meeting drinking water needs using bottled or filtered tap water led to the lowest bladder cancer DALYs (respectively, 140 and 9 times lower than using tap water) in the Barcelona population. Our study provides the first attempt to integrate HIA and LCA to compare health and environmental impacts of individual water consumption choices. Our results suggest that the sustainability gain from consuming water from public supply relative to bottled water may exceed the reduced risk of bladder cancer due to THM exposure from consuming bottled water in Barcelona. Our analysis highlights several critical data gaps and methodological challenges in quantifying integrated health and environmental impacts of drinking water choices.

Coffee consumption and colorectal cancer risk: a multicentre case-control study from Italy and Spain.

BACKGROUND: Coffee contains many bioactive substances that can play a role on colorectal cancer. Epidemiological evidence of coffee intake and colorectal cancer is, however, inconsistent. AIM: To provide further information on the risk of colorectal cancer in relation to coffee consumption. METHODS: Data derive from two companion case-control studies conducted in Italy and Spain within the European Union Project on Health Impacts of long-term exposure to disinfection by-products in Drinking Water and the Spanish Multi-Case Control study on Cancer. These included a total of 2289 incident cases with colorectal cancer and 3995 controls with information on coffee intake. Odds ratios (ORs) and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were derived from unconditional logistic regression models, adjusted for study centre, sex, age, education, smoking, and other covariates. RESULTS: Compared with never coffee drinkers, the OR was 0.99 (95% CI 0.95-1.02) for total coffee consumption. There was no significant trend in risk with dose or duration, the ORs being 0.95 (95% CI 0.72-1.25) for an amount of five or more cups per day of coffee and 0.95 (95% CI 0.75-1.19) for a duration of consumption of 50 years or longer. The OR was 1.04 (95% CI 0.87-1.25) for two or more cups per day of decaffeinated coffee. There were no heterogeneity across strata of various covariates, as well as no apparent differences between various anatomical subsites. CONCLUSION: This large pooled analysis of two studies shows no association of coffee and decaffeinated coffee with colorectal cancer risk.

Coffee consumption, genetic susceptibility and bladder cancer risk.

OBJECTIVE: We evaluated the bladder cancer risk associated with coffee consumption in a case-control study in Spain and examined the gene-environment interactions for genetic variants of caffeine-metabolizing enzymes. METHODS: The analyses included 1,136 incident cases with urothelial carcinoma of the urinary bladder and 1,138 controls. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were adjusted for area, age, gender, amount of cigarette smoking, and years since quitting among former smokers. RESULTS: The OR (95% CI) for ever consumed coffee was 1.25 (0.95-1.64). For consumers of 1, 2, 3, and 4 or more cups/day relative to never drinkers, OR were, respectively, 1.24 (0.92-1.66), 1.11 (95% CI 0.82-1.51), 1.57 (1.13-2.19), and 1.27 (0.88-1.81). Coffee consumption was higher in smokers compared to never smokers. The OR for drinking at least 4 cups/day was 1.13 (0.61-2.09) in current smokers, 1.57 (0.86-2.90) in former smokers, and 1.23 (0.55-2.76) in never smokers. Gene-coffee interactions evaluated in NAT2, CYP1A2, and CYP2E1-02 and CYP1A1 were not identified after adjusting for multiple testing. CONCLUSION: We observed a modest increased bladder cancer risk among coffee drinkers that may, in part, be explained by residual confounding by smoking. The findings from the gene-coffee interactions need replication in further studies.

Valores de trihalometanos en agua de consumo de la provincia de Granada, España / Trihalomethane levels in drinking water in the province of Granada [Spain]

Objetivos: La cloración del agua da lugar a la formación desubproductos potencialmente dañinos para la salud, entre elloslos trihalometanos, que se han hallado elevados en algunaszonas de España. En este estudio se investigan los valoresde trihalometanos en el agua de consumo suministrada porvarios sistemas de abastecimiento de la provincia de Granada,en el área de actuación de la cohorte madres-hijos de laRed INMA (Infancia y Medio Ambiente).Métodos: Se analizaron 82 muestras de agua de consumoen dos campañas de muestreo en invierno y verano de 2006.Se determinó la concentración de cloroformo, bromodiclorometano,dibromoclorometano y bromoformo, siguiendo un procedimientooptimizado basado en cromatografía de gases yespectrometría de masas.Resultados: El rango de concentración de trihalometanos totalesse situó entre 0,14 y 18,75 g/l en la campaña de inviernoy entre 0,01 y 31,87 g/l en la de verano. El compuestomayoritario fue cloroformo. La concentración media de trihalometanosen agua de origen superficial y subterráneo fue de10,13 y 1,41 g/l, respectivamente.Conclusiones: Los valores de trihalometanos encontradosson muy inferiores a la concentración máxima admisible (100g/l) establecida por la Unión Europea para estos compuestos.Estos valores varían significativamente según el origendel agua, con mayores concentraciones en áreas urbana ysemiurbana, donde el agua es mayoritariamente de origen superficial.La presencia de trihalometanos en la zona es menora la descrita en otras regiones españolas(AU)

Objectives: Drinking water chlorination generates potentiallyharmful by-products, such as trihalomethanes. Trihalomethanelevels are high in some parts of Spain. The aim of the presentstudy was to investigate trihalomethane concentrationsin drinking water from distinct water supplies in the provinceof Granada, within the framework of the Childhood and Environment(INMA) study.Methods: Eighty-two tap water samples were collected in twocampaigns during the winter and summer of 2006. An optimizedprocedure based on gas chromatography and massspectrometry was used to determine concentrations of chloroform,bromodichloromethane, dibromochloromethane, andbromoform in the samples.Results: Total trihalomethane concentrations ranged from 0.14to 18.75 g/l in winter samples and from 0.01 to 31.87 g/lin summer samples. The most abundant compound waschloroform. Mean trihalomethane concentrations were 10.13in surface waters and 1.41 g/l in ground waters.Conclusions: The trihalomethane levels found were considerablybelow the maximum permitted level of 100 g/l in the European Union. The values obtained varied widely accordingto the type of water source: the highest concentrations werefound in urban and sub-urban areas, where the water is largelyof surface origin. The presence of trihalomethanes waslower than that reported in other Spanish regions(AU)

Environmental exposure, chlorinated drinking water, and bladder cancer.

Environmental and/or occupational factors have been proposed to play a critical role in urological malignancies and, in particular, in bladder cancer. Epidemiological studies have demonstrated with sufficient evidence that factors such as smoking and exposure to aromatic amines, paints and solvents, leather dust, inks, some metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, combustion products, or diesel exhaust fumes are associated with the development of bladder cancer. Candidates with an uncertain potential for inducing this type of cancer include dietary factors, specifically fats and cholesterol, and the exposure to contaminants in drinking water. This chapter will describe and discuss the respective literature on environmental and occupational factors linked to carcinogenesis in bladder cancer. For several reasons, the potential effects of tea and coffee consumption will also be considered. A solid epidemiological evaluation of environmental and occupational factors linked to carcinogenesis has to meet many challenges: the number of confounding factors is often large, exposure needs to be determined retrospectively, and elevation of the attributable risk is low in most cases. In view of the long-term exposure of the vast majority of the population to, for instance, drinking- water contaminants, however, the impact of even small elevations of risk warrants evaluation. This complex task needs comprehensive approaches on a large scale including modern analytical, molecular biological and epidemiological methods.