Heavy metals in Distilled spirits

Overview

This provisional ingredient page records source-specific measurements for whiskey. Its population contamination profile has not been synthesized. See Ingredients for the ingredient inventory.

Heavy metal contamination profile

The profile fields remain pending until an evidence synthesis supports a population estimate. Source observations are listed separately below.

Reported measurements

The population contamination profile on this page is unchanged. These notes do not set a typical value, an upper-tail value, or a certification limit.

Whisky

Gajek and colleagues, discussion figures only. Blended total chromium 53.83 to 666.1 µg/L. Single malt total chromium 10.70 to 108 µg/L. One Irish blended sample, 1 of 170, had lead 450.9 µg/L. Total mercury was below the limit of quantification in all 170. A numeric mercury limit is not in the text. Table 2 means are not used because neighboring rows print a maximum below the mean. A row labeled N is not nickel. Multielemental analysis of various kinds of whisky

Pawlaczyk and colleagues, total mercury only. Speyside average 1.82 µg/L, USA 4.56 µg/L, Highland 2.13 µg/L, Irish 2.16 µg/L. None exceeded 20 µg/L. Other metals are semi-quantitative and are not copied. Subgroup n is not printed. n = 20 overall. Multielemental Analysis of Various Kinds of Whisky

Data gap: cadmium, aluminum, nickel, and tin means are not copied from the inconsistent Table 2.

Whisky distillation and gut studies of lead, mercury, and hexavalent chromium

Whisky is a distilled spirit. Fermentation and distillation change the product. They are not a model of the infant gut or of a mouse gavage. The chromium reported for whisky on this page is total chromium, not hexavalent chromium. Mercury in the notes is total mercury, with values below a stated quantification limit in one survey. The studies below did not dose whisky.

Sitarik et al. 2020 measured tooth lead and stool microbiota at 1 month and 6 months in 146 maternal-child pairs in the Detroit-area WHEALS cohort. In utero tooth lead was associated with fungal community composition at 1 month. Lead was not associated with overall bacterial community structure. Taxon-level bacterial shifts were higher Collinsella at 1 month, higher Bilophila at 6 months, and lower Bacteroides. The direction is lead exposure toward microbiota composition. Tooth lead is a biomarker, not a concentration in this ingredient.

Eggers et al. 2023, per WikiBiome source summary, DOI 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1193919, followed 123 children in the Mexico City PROGRESS cohort. Maternal blood lead means were 33.6 µg/L in the second trimester and 34.9 µg/L in the third. Stool metagenomes at ages 9 to 11 showed lower Bacteroides caccae with lead exposure. Weighted quantile sum regression gave a negative overall mixture effect (beta = -0.17) in both trimesters. The direction is prenatal lead toward the childhood gut microbiota. The summary does not support a lead concentration in food.

Giambo et al. 2021, per WikiBiome source summary, DOI 10.3892/wasj.2021.90, screened 600 articles and included 97. For mercury, the note states that methylation and demethylation are a core process in methylmercury metabolism and that microbiota changes have been linked to neurodevelopmental effects in rat offspring. The note does not assign a new sample size to that mercury summary. The direction summarized is microbiota toward methylmercury metabolism, and exposure toward microbiota in the offspring studies. The review does not test this ingredient.

Mu et al. 2023 gavaged mice with potassium dichromate at 75 mg/kg for 29 days (n = 60 across three groups). Hexavalent chromium lowered Chao1 diversity from 170.75 ± 15.79 to 87.00 ± 9.55 (p = 0.00029) and Shannon diversity from 4.64 ± 0.68 to 2.64 ± 0.64 (p = 0.0055). Escherichia_Shigella rose from 10.71 percent to 57.75 percent. Seaweed polysaccharide at 200 mg/kg partly reversed the shift. The direction is hexavalent chromium toward gut microbiota. The dose is a gavage dose. It is not a total-chromium concentration in food.

Richardson et al. 2018, per WikiBiome source summary, DOI 10.1038/s41598-018-24931-w, gavaged Sprague-Dawley rats for 5 days with sodium arsenite, cadmium chloride, sodium dichromate, cobalt chloride, or nickel chloride, 5 rats per cohort. The note does not print the milligram doses. Observed OTUs and Shannon diversity were lower for arsenic, chromium, and nickel (p < 0.05). Differential genera numbered 37 for nickel, 17 for arsenic, 5 for cadmium, and 10 for chromium. Sodium dichromate is a hexavalent chromium salt, so the chromium arm is not a total-chromium result. The direction is short oral exposure toward the rat gut microbiota.

Study table

What remains uncertain

Both chromium gut studies used hexavalent salts. They do not describe total chromium in a spirit. The mercury sentence is a review of methylmercury metabolism and does not speciate the whisky mercury rows. Lead cohorts use biomarkers, not a bottle concentration. No study cited here sampled stool after whisky.

FDA TDS FY2018–FY2020 source observations

FDA measured the prepared foods named below. Each row describes that food and preparation, not every form of this ingredient. Values are µg/kg (ppb) on the FDA sample basis. ND means not detected; it is not a measured zero. Reporting limits can vary between composites. FY2018-FY2020 TDS Elements Analytical Results

References

Works cited in this page’s text, in first-appearance order. See Sources for this page’s source inventory. Each title links to a source record with bibliographic details, reported findings, and document provenance.

1. Multielemental analysis of various kinds of whiskyMagdalena Gajek, Aleksandra Pawlaczyk, and Malgorzata Iwona Szynkowska · Foods · 2022 · doi.org/10.3390/foods11111616Peer-reviewed
2. Multielemental Analysis of Various Kinds of WhiskyAleksandra Pawlaczyk, Magdalena Gajek, Krzysztof Jozwik, and Malgorzata Iwona Szynkowska · Molecules · 2019 · doi.org/10.3390/molecules24071193Peer-reviewed
3. Fetal and early postnatal lead exposure measured in teeth associates with infant gut microbiotaSitarik AR, Arora M, Austin C, Bielak LF, Eggers S, Johnson CC, et al. · Environment International · 2020 · doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2020.106062Peer-reviewed
4. Prenatal lead exposure is negatively associated with the gut microbiome in childhoodEggers S, Midya V, Bixby M, Gennings C, Torres-Olascoaga LA, Walker RW, et al. · Frontiers in Microbiology · 2023 · doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1193919Peer-reviewed
5. Influence of toxic metal exposure on the gut microbiotaGiambo F, Italia S, Teodoro M, Briguglio G, Furnari N, Catanoso R, et al. · World Academy of Sciences Journal · 2021 · doi.org/10.3892/wasj.2021.90Peer-reviewed
6. Seaweed polysaccharide relieves hexavalent chromium-induced gut microbial homeostasisMu J, Guo Z, Wang X, Wang X, Fu Y, Li X, et al. · Frontiers in Microbiology · 2023 · doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.1100988Peer-reviewed
7. Exposure to toxic metals triggers unique responses from the rat gut microbiotaRichardson JB, Dancy BCR, Horton CL, Lee YS, Madejczyk MS, Xu Z, et al. · Scientific Reports · 2018 · doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-24931-wPeer-reviewed
8. FY2018-FY2020 TDS Elements Analytical ResultsU.S. Food and Drug Administration · FDA Total Diet Study · 2022 · www.fda.govDataset

Sources

Sources catalogued for this page. The last column says how each source is used here.

Update history

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