Heavy metals and metalloids in wild boars (Sus Scrofa) - a silent but serious public health hazard

Overview

Baptista et al. (2024) measured metal and metalloid concentrations in liver and kidney tissues from 28 hunted wild boars in Castile and Leon, Spain. The study is routeable for game-meat and organ-meat occurrence because liver and kidney tissues are edible offal and the paper frames wild boars as part of the hunting economy and human diet in the Iberian Peninsula. Concentrations are reported in mg/kg dry weight; arsenic and chromium are total-element ICP-MS measurements without inorganic-arsenic or hexavalent chromium (Cr-VI) speciation.

Key numbers

The abstract highlights kidney cadmium (Cd) as the most concerning value, reporting 7.063 +/- 7.271 mg/kg dw compared with the paper’s calculated Cd maximum level of 2.491 mg/kg dw for kidney. The Results text reports no statistically significant differences between metal(loid) values and geographic locations. Histopathology context in Table 2 records hydropic changes in liver in 8/28 (28.57%) animals, liver congestion in 6/28 (21.43%), kidney non-purulent nephritis in 7/28 (25.00%), and kidney congestion in 4/28 (14.29%).

The paper reports several tissue-specific correlations: liver Zn-Cu r = 0.567; p = 0.003, liver Zn-Co r = 0.460; p = 0.018, kidney Ni-Cr r = 0.486; p = 0.010, kidney Ni-Co r = 0.638; p < 0.001, kidney Co-tAs r = 0.586; p = 0.001, kidney Zn-Cu r = 0.761; p < 0.001, kidney Zn-Cd r = 0.593; p = 0.001, and kidney Cu-Cd r = 0.383; p = 0.049. Wild boars with liver hydropic changes had higher hepatic nickel (Ni) (p = 0.013) and lower Cu (p = 0.030) and Zn (p = 0.008) than the total group.

Methods (brief)

Twenty-eight wild boars killed during the February 2021 hunting season in Castile and Leon were sampled from eleven named localities. Liver and kidney samples were collected from fresh carcasses immediately after death; tissue for element quantification was stored below -10 degrees C, freeze-dried for 48 h at -56 degrees C, and digested with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide. Concentrations of arsenic (As), Cd, Co, chromium (Cr), Cu, Ni, lead (Pb), and Zn were measured by ICP-MS. The average quantification limits in mg/kg were below 0.025 for As, 0.01 for Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, and Pb, and 0.1 for Zn. The quality-control procedure used ERM BB185 bovine liver certified reference material, blanks, and duplicates; duplicate CRM recoveries were As 99%, Cd 71%, Cu 70%, Pb 95%, and Zn 87%.

Implications

This source adds a Castile and Leon, Spain wild-boar offal dataset to the game-meats evidence pool. Kidney Cd is the clear high-signal tissue-metal pair in this study, while liver and kidney Pb means sit below the paper’s converted dry-weight Pb comparator. Because no skeletal muscle samples were measured, this paper should not be used as direct wild-boar muscle occurrence evidence; it is liver/kidney organ-meat context.

Related evidence

• Game meats (venison, bison, rabbit)
• Meat and poultry
• Organ Meats (Kidney and Liver)
• Arsenic, Total
• Cadmium
• Cobalt
• Chromium
• Copper
• Nickel
• Lead
• Zinc

Update history

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