McClatchy Washington Bureau

VISALIA, Calif. _ Central California communities coping with arsenic in their water may have one more thing to worry about _ diabetes.

Arsenic, a toxic element long known as a cancer-causing agent, is found in rocks and soil _ and underground water _ in parts of the country and around the world.

Now doctors at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, suggest a connection between low-level exposure to arsenic and Type 2 diabetes. In an article in the Aug. 20 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, or JAMA, Dr. Ana Navas-Acien and her co-authors reported their analysis of nearly 800 American adults who had urine tests for arsenic in a 2003-04 government health survey.

Read the full story at fresnobee.com.