Arsenic exposure and prevalence of human papillomavirus in the US male population

Arsenic is a known carcinogen and is naturally available in earth’s crust. Inorganic arsenic is an environmental pollutant with immunosuppressive properties. Human papillomavirus (HPV) is considered one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the United States. HPV is linked to several types of cancers in males, including oral, anal, and penile cancer. However, limited information is available on the effect of arsenic on HPV in males. The purpose of this study was to examine the association of urinary arsenic species (speciated and total) and the prevalence of HPV infection in the male population. HPV prevalence in males was analyzed using the 2013–2014 and 2015–2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) dataset. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine associations of seven types of urinary arsenic species (arsenous acid, arsenic acid, arsenobetaine, arsenocholine, dimethylarsinic acid (DMA), monomethylarsonic acid (MMA), total arsenic acid) with HPV risk for male participants aged 18–59 years ( N = 1516). Demographic characteristics were included in the logistic regression model for each arsenic variable. All statistical analyses were conducted by using the software R (version 4.2.0). Increasing DMA was positively associated with the prevalence of low-risk HPV (odds ratio ( OR ): 1.075, 95% confidence interval ( CI ): 1.025, 1.128) in addition to the sum of total toxic arsenic species (TUA1) including arsenous acid, arsenic acid, DMA, and MMA ( OR : 1.068, 95% CI : 1.022, 1.116). High-risk HPV strains were found to be positively associated with arsenic acid ( OR : 1.806, 95% CI : 1.134, 2.876) and total arsenic minus the sum of the two organic arsenic species arsenobetaine and arsenocholine (TUA2) at quartile 3 (Q3) level ( OR : 1.523, 95% CI : 1.102, 2.103). The logistic regression models also showed that race and marital status were significant factors related to high-risk HPV. Our study reported that DMA and TUA1 are associated with low-risk HPV and arsenic acid is associated with high-risk HPV infections in males. Future research is required to confirm or refute this finding.