Consumption of water contaminated by nitrate and its deleterious effects on the human thyroid gland: a review and update

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, the nitrates have been established as carcinogenic components due to the endogenous formation of N-nitroso compounds, however, the consumption of water contaminated with nitrates has only been strongly related to the presence of methemoglobinemia in infants, as an acute effect, leaving out other side effects that demand attention. The thyroid gland takes relevance because it can be altered by many pollutants known as endocrine disruptors, which are agents capable of interfering with the synthesis of hormones, thus far, it is known that nitrates may disrupt the amount of iodine uptake causing most of the time hypothyroidism and affecting the metabolic functions of the organism in all development stages, resulting in an important health burden for the exposed population. Here, this review and update highlighted the impact of consumption of water contaminated with nitrates and effects on the thyroid gland in humans, concluding that nitrates could act as true endocrine disruptor.

Keywords:

• Nitrates
• contaminated water
• thyroid disruptor
• thyroid dysfunction

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT, México, www.conacyt.gob.mx) and Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI), grants to R.P-M, A.G-Z, E.H.O-C. E.G-T (CVU-599255) and E.R-S (CVU-634591) received a Ph.D scholarship from CONACyT.