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Essential and toxic elements analysis of wild boar tissues from north-eastern Romania and health risk implications

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Overview

Boișteanu and colleagues measured essential minerals and toxic metals in wild-boar muscle and kidney from north-eastern Romania. The study is routeable for game-meat and organ-meat occurrence because the results tables report tissue-specific Pb and Cd concentrations on a wet-weight basis. The authors found age- and sex-related differences and flagged Pb and Cd accumulation as a consumer-health concern for the study area.

Key numbers

  • Units: Tables 1-3 declare values as “mg g⁻¹ w.w.” in their headings, but the Methods section (p.4) explicitly states the final results are “expressed in mg kg⁻¹ w.w.”, and the regulatory comparisons (EC 1881/2006 ML of 0.1 mg/kg Pb in muscle, 0.5 mg/kg Pb in kidney, 0.05 mg/kg Cd in muscle, 1.0 mg/kg Cd in kidney) only reconcile with the reported exceedance percentages (e.g., 19.44% of juvenile muscle samples over the Pb ML) if the table values are mg/kg, not mg/g. The “mg g⁻¹” in the table headings is a typographical error; the values below are reported as mg/kg wet weight.
  • Sample composition: 124 wild boars total (8 female adults, 8 female juveniles, 80 male adults, 28 male juveniles).
  • Longissimus lumborum mean Pb (mg/kg w.w.): female adults 0.1008, female juveniles 0.0629, male adults 0.1018, male juveniles 0.070 (Table 1).
  • Longissimus lumborum mean Cd (mg/kg w.w.): female adults 0.0514, female juveniles 0.0332, male adults 0.0545, male juveniles 0.0473 (Table 1).
  • Kidney mean Pb (mg/kg w.w.): female adults 0.4627, female juveniles 0.2376, male adults 0.5347, male juveniles 0.2418 (Table 2).
  • Kidney mean Cd (mg/kg w.w.): female adults 0.992, female juveniles 0.4116, male adults 1.0022, male juveniles 0.4201 (Table 2).
  • Exceedance proportions vs EC 1881/2006 maximum levels (Table 3): 19.44% of juvenile muscle samples exceeded the 0.1 mg/kg Pb ML, 31.81% of adult muscle samples exceeded it, 57.95% of adult kidney samples exceeded the 0.5 mg/kg Pb ML, and 45.45% of adult kidney samples exceeded the 1.0 mg/kg Cd ML.

Methods (brief)

Wild-boar muscle (Longissimus lumborum) and kidney samples were collected from animals harvested through Romania’s herd-density control program (Frasin District, Suceava County) across the 2010-2021 winter hunting seasons. Tissues were transported to the laboratory at 0-4°C, trimmed of connective and adipose tissue, vacuum-packed, and stored at -20°C until analysis. Mineralisation was carried out with 6N hydrochloric acid (Merck, Darmstadt) and ultrapure water, with the resulting solution filtered through Whatman No. 1 paper. Elemental concentrations were determined by flame atomic absorption spectrometry on an AA-6300 spectrophotometer (Shimadzu Corporation, Kyoto, Japan) using an air-acetylene flame, with 5-point calibration curves for each element (Pb at λ=217 nm; Cd at λ=228.8 nm; Cu at λ=324.7 nm; Zn at λ=231.9 nm; Mn at λ=280.1 nm; Mg at λ=202.6 nm; Fe at λ=372 nm). The paper does not measure arsenic, mercury, or chromium; reported Pb and Cd values are total element concentrations with no speciation. Statistical analysis used SPSS v.20 (two-way ANOVA, PCA, Spearman correlation). Estimated Daily Intake and Hazard Quotient were computed assuming 70 kg adult and 20 kg child body weights.

Implications

Certification: This source contributes wet-weight Pb and Cd occurrence data for wild-boar muscle and kidney from a single hunting region in north-eastern Romania, with a sample skew toward male adults (80 of 124 animals). The unit basis is mg/kg w.w. (resolved from the Methods text against the table-heading typo); values are usable for pooled benchmark math as native-basis muscle and kidney occurrence for the game-meats category, with the geographic and sex-distribution caveats above.

Courses: The dataset shows kidney Pb and Cd concentrations roughly 5-20x higher than matched muscle values in the same animals, illustrating organ-tissue bioaccumulation in hunted ungulates from anthropogenically influenced habitats.

App: Treat this as regional context for Romanian wild boar rather than a global game-meat default; the high exceedance proportions vs EC 1881/2006 maximum levels are specific to this hunting district and harvest period.

Update history

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