Arsenic in Rice Bran Products: In Vitro Oral Bioaccessibility, Arsenic Transformation by Human Gut Microbiota, and Human Health Risk Assessment

Despite rice consumption, rice bran as a byproduct of rice milling contains higher arsenic (As). The present study evaluated the metabolic potency of in vitro cultured human colon microbiota toward As from five rice bran products with 0.471–1.491 mg of As/kg. Arsenic bioaccessibility ranged from 52.8 to 78.8% in the gastric phase, and a 1.2-fold increase (66.0–95.8%) was observed upon the small intestinal phase. Subsequently, a significant decline of As bioaccessibility (11.3–63.6%) and a high methylation percentage of 18.5–79.8% were found in the colon phase. The predominant As species in the solid phase was always As­(V) (49.6–63.4%), and As–thiolate complexes increased by 10% at the end of colon incubation. Human gut microbiota could induce As bioaccessibility lowering and As transformation in rice bran, which illustrated the importance of food-bound As metabolism in the human body. This will result in a better understanding of health implications associated with As exposures.