Towards a dietary-exposome assessment of chemicals in food: An update on the chronic health risks for the European consumer.

An informed opinion to a hugely important question, whether the food on the Europeans' plate is safe to eat, is provided. Today, the Europeans face food-borne health risks from non-communicable diseases induced by excess body weight, outbreaks caused by pathogens, antimicrobial resistance and exposures to chemical contaminants. In this review, these risks are first put in an order of importance. Then, not only potentially injurious dietary chemicals are discussed but also beneficial factors of the food. This review can be regarded as an attempt towards a dietary-exposome evaluation of the chemicals, the average European adult consumers could chronically expose to during their life-times. Risk ranking reveals that currently the European adults are chronically exposed to a mixture of potentially genotoxic-carcinogenic contaminants, particularly food process contaminants, at the potential risk levels. Furthermore, several of the contaminants whose dietary exposures pose risks appear to be carcinogens operating with a genotoxic mode of action targeting the liver. This suggests that combined health risks from the exposure to a mixture of the chemical contaminants poses a greater potential risk than the risks assessed for single compounds. Over 100 European-level risk assessments are examined. Finally, the importance of a diversified and balanced diet is emphasized.

Occurrence and Human-Health Impacts of Mycotoxins in Somalia.

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by various molds that contaminate many staple foods and cause a broad range of detrimental health effects in animals and humans through chronic exposure or acute toxicity. As such, the worldwide contamination of food and feed with mycotoxins is a significant problem, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In this study, mycotoxin occurrence in staple foods consumed in Somalia was determined. A total of 140 samples (42 maize, 40 sorghum, and 58 wheat) were collected from a number of markets in Mogadishu, Somalia, and analyzed by a UPLC-MS/MS multimycotoxin method that could detect 77 toxins. All of the maize samples tested contained eight or more mycotoxins, with aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) and fumonisin B1 (FB1) levels reaching up to 908 and 17 322 µg/kg, respectively, greatly exceeding the European Union limits and guidance values. The average probable daily intake of fumonisins (FB1 and FB2) was 16.70 µg per kilogram of body weight (kg bw) per day, representing 835% of the recommended provisional maximum tolerable daily intake value of 2 µg/(kg bw)/day. A risk characterization revealed a mean national margin of exposure of 0.62 for AFB1 with an associated risk of developing primary liver cancer estimated at 75 cancers per year per 100 000 people for white-maize consumption alone. The results clearly indicate that aflatoxin and fumonisin exposure is a major public-health concern and that risk-management actions require prioritization in Somalia.

Assessing the mycotoxicological risk from consumption of complementary foods by infants and young children in Nigeria.

This study assessed, for the first time, the mycotoxicological risks from consumption of complementary foods by infants and young children in Nigeria. Molds belonging to Aspergillus aculeatinus, A. flavus, A. luchuensis, A. tubingensis, A. welwitschiae and Geotrichum candidum were recovered from the complementary foods. Twenty-eight major mycotoxins and derivatives, and another 109 microbial metabolites including chloramphenicol (a bacterial metabolite), were quantified in 137 food samples by LC-MS/MS. Aflatoxins and fumonisins co-contaminated 42% of the cereal- and nut-based food samples, at mean concentrations exceeding the EU limits of 0.1 and 200 µg/kg set for processed baby foods by 300 and six times, respectively. Milk contained mainly beauvericin, chloramphenicol and zearalenone. The trichothecenes, T-2 and HT-2 toxins, were quantified only in infant formula and at levels three times above the EU indicative level of 15 µg/kg for baby food. Chronic exposure estimate to carcinogenic aflatoxin was high causing low margin of exposure (MOE). Exposures to other mycotoxins either exceeded the established reference values by several fold or revealed low MOEs, pointing to important health risks in this highly vulnerable population. The observed mycotoxin mixtures may further increase risks of adverse health outcomes of exposure; this warrants urgent advocacy and regulatory interventions.

Risks to human and animal health related to the presence of moniliformin in food and feed.

Moniliformin (MON) is a mycotoxin with low molecular weight primarily produced by Fusarium fungi and occurring predominantly in cereal grains. Following a request of the European Commission, the CONTAM Panel assessed the risk of MON to human and animal health related to its presence in food and feed. The limited information available on toxicity and on toxicokinetics in experimental and farm animals indicated haematotoxicity and cardiotoxicity as major adverse health effects of MON. MON causes chromosome aberrations in vitro but no in vivo genotoxicity data and no carcinogenicity data were identified. Due to the limitations in the available toxicity data, human acute or chronic health-based guidance values (HBGV) could not be established. The margin of exposure (MOE) between the no-observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) of 6.0 mg/kg body weight (bw) for cardiotoxicity from a subacute study in rats and the acute upper bound (UB) dietary exposure estimates ranged between 4,000 and 73,000. The MOE between the lowest benchmark dose lower confidence limit (for a 5% response - BMDL05) of 0.20 mg MON/kg bw per day for haematological hazards from a 28-day study in pigs and the chronic dietary human exposure estimates ranged between 370 and 5,000,000 for chronic dietary exposures. These MOEs indicate a low risk for human health but were associated with high uncertainty. The toxicity data available for poultry, pigs, and mink indicated a low or even negligible risk for these animals from exposure to MON in feed at the estimated exposure levels under current feeding practices. Assuming similar or lower sensitivity as for pigs, the CONTAM Panel considered a low or even negligible risk for the other animal species for which no toxicity data suitable for hazard characterisation were identified. Additional toxicity studies are needed and depending on their outcome, the collection of more occurrence data on MON in food and feed is recommended to enable a comprehensive human risk assessment.

Human risk assessment of heavy metals: principles and applications.

Humans are exposed to a number of "heavy metals" such as cadmium, mercury and its organic form methylmercury, uranium, lead, and other metals as wel as metalloids, such as arsenic, in the environment, workplace, food, and water supply. Exposure to these metals may result in adverse health effects, and national and international health agencies have methodologies to set health-based guidance values with the aim to protect the human population. This chapter introduces the general principles of chemical risk assessment, the common four steps of chemical risk assessment: hazard identification, hazard characterization, exposure assessment, risk characterization, and toxicokinetic and toxicity aspects. Finally, the risk assessments performed by international health agencies such as the World Health Organisation, the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States, and the European Food Safety Authority are reviewed for cadmium, lead, mercury, uranium, and arsenic.

Application of manual and automated systems for purification of ochratoxin a and zearalenone in cereals with immunoaffinity columns.

A manual vacuum manifold and an automated solid phase extraction (ASPEC) system were applied for purification of ochratoxin A and zearalenone in wheat, rye, barley, and oat samples with immunoaffinity columns followed by separation with a high-performance liquid chromatograph and fluorescence detection. The immunoaffinity columns for manual sample purification were purchased from a different manufacturer than were those for the automated system. The limit of detection (LOD) for the method for ochratoxin A with a vacuum manifold and ASPEC was 0.1 microg/kg. For the method for zearalenone, the LODs were 1.5 microg/kg with a vacuum manifold and 3 microg/kg with ASPEC. For the methods for ochratoxin A at spiking levels of 0.6 and 2.5 microg/kg, mean recoveries for different cereals varied from 68 to 106%. For the methods for zearalenone, mean recoveries varied from 78 to 117% at spiking levels of 9 and 25 microg/kg. The relative standard deviations of repeatability with various cereals employing both methods were 2-15 and 2-19% for ochratoxin A and zearalenone, respectively.