Dietary Intake of Toxic Heavy Metals with Major Groups of

Overview

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Key numbers

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contributors to a total intake of Cd (39.6 and 17.4% of the total exposure, respectively), Ni (40.4 and
19.3%), and Hg (16.8 and 19.6%), while water and beverages were major dietary sources of Pb (31%
by the NIPH, all food products were divided into the major 12 food groups (Table 1).
oranges 7.65 bananas 28.9
multi-element standards CCS-4 and CCS-6 (100 g/mL in 7% HNO3; Inorganic Ventures,
Table 2. Selective validation parameters of the applied method.
value (mg/kg) 0.29 0.52 0.21 0.49
As was previously mentioned (20), solid foods, vegetables, cereals, meat, and meat
Table 3. Daily intake of toxic heavy metals with particular food groups. Each value represents
different at p ≤ 0.05. The underlined means are significantly different between women and men at
weekly intake (TWI) value for Cd at 2.5 µg/kg b.w./week, which is significantly lower
(7 µg/kg b.w./week) (8,39), it became clear that the daily intake, even in agricultural
The obtained results reveal that the total intake of Cd was only 51.2% of the calculated
PTWI in the case of women, and 49.1% in the case of men. These data are much lower in
biological half-life (44). Therefore, EC established strict regulations regarding acceptable
Cereals accounted for the largest share of the overall Cd intake, accounting for 30.2%
and 39.6% of the total daily intake of Cd among women and men, respectively. Vegetables
were the second major food group significantly contributing to Cd intake (17.4% and 21%
contributing to the total intake of Cd (26.9%), followed by vegetables (16%), starchy roots
and tubers (13.2%), and potatoes (13.2%). Some significant differences were also revealed
in Irish adults (30%) and remained fairly high in many surveys except in Italy, Spain,
(25%) and the Czech Republic (15%), while the contribution of fish was the highest among
Spanish (31%) and Italian adults (23%) where consumption of these products is especially
and Serbia (53.8%) (51). Some of these studies also indicated vegetables and potatoes as the
contributor to Cd intake in Chile (37.9%) (55) or Asian countries, where Cd is mostly
contributor to the dietary intake of Cd in the Serbian population (16.3%).
identified a range of values for the 95% lower confidence limit of the benchmark dose of
1% extra risk (BMDL01 ) for each endpoint. The so-called BMDL values which establish the
briefly described as follows: a dietary intake of 0.50 µg/kg b.w.—a possibility of developing
neurotoxicity in children; in the adult population—1.50 µg/kg b.w.—a potential risk of
systolic blood pressure, and 0.63 µg/kg b.w.—a potential risk of developing chronic kidney
rations was 1.12 µg/kg b.w. among women and 1.02 µg/kg b.w. among men. These
samples with values ranging between 0.009 and 0.10 mg/kg, which corresponded to
was estimated at 38.3 µg/person/day. Risk estimations disclose that at least 3.3% and
26.7% of the participants might experience cardiovascular and nephrotoxic effects, re-
in the present study, accounting for 25.3% and 31% of the total daily intake of Pb among
be significant contributors to the daily intake of Pb among women (12.7%), and cereals
contributors. This group of food accounted, on average, for 27.8% of the total Pb intake
in the European population, followed by grains and grain-based products (16.3%), milk
Marzec and Schlegel-Zawadzka in Poland (16) revealed that cereals, vegetables, and meat
for total Hg (THg) as 4 µg/kg/b.w./week and only 1.6 µg/kg/b.w./week for MeHg are
an intake limit for MeHg of 0.7 µg/kg b.w./week, the 2.3-fold lower limit than that of

Methods (brief)

and Ni) using a combination of the 24-dietary recall technique, the ICP-OES (Inductively Coupled
Products—Results of Analytical Keywords: food; dietary intake; heavy metals; ICP-OES
using the ICP-OES method.
the analysis. Quartz crucibles and polypropylene recipients were applied for the digestion
databases, and analytical determinations of toxic heavy metals using ICP-OES were used.
Department of Food and Nutrition of the Medical University in Lublin. The collected
mixed to compose a representative sample. For each food group, three separate duplicates
were prepared. In total, 216 food samples were subjected to analytical determinations
2.3. Analytical Determination of Cd, Pb, Hg and Ni Using ICP-OES
Homogenized food samples were digested according to previously described proto-
cols (8,20). Concentrations of Cd, Pb, Hg, and Ni were determined using the ICP-OES
its accuracy and precision in the determination of heavy metals in food samples. For this
same analytical protocol as the studied samples. The analysis of the reference material was
LOD * (µg/kg) 0.8 4.5 1.8 1.2
LOQ ** (µg/kg) 2.1 14.8 6.0 4.0
- LOD—Limit of Detection; ** LOQ—Limit of Quantification.
Fats and oils <LOQ <LOQ
by evaluating its levels in duplicate diet samples. Pb was detected in all the analyzed

Implications

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Update history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.

Commit	Date	Change	Description
b01ec52c	2026-08-04	major	2 sections added
d49e450f	2026-08-03	major	5 sections added; narrative text revised