Food survey: Levels and potential health risks of chromium, lead, zinc and copper content in fruits and vegetables consumed in Algeria

Overview

Cherfi and colleagues measured chromium, lead, zinc, and copper in selected fruits and vegetables sold in Algeria and estimated dietary exposure for adults in Boumerdes. The source reports arithmetic mean concentrations in mg/kg dry weight for two fruit and thirteen vegetable foodstuffs. Chromium is reported as total chromium only; no Cr(III)/Cr(VI) speciation is provided.

Key numbers

Table 1 reports concentrations of metals in mg/kg dry weight:

Additional source-reported ranges and exposure estimates:

• Abstract concentration ranges were Cu 4-29.49, Zn 11.17-49, lead (Pb) 12.33-39.33, and chromium (Cr) 3-16.33 mg/kg dry wt..
• The results section gives the same ranges, with Cu minimum 3.83 mg/kg in zucchinis and Cr maximum 16.33 mg/kg in onions.
• Table 3 global estimated daily intake values were Cu 12.185, Zn 17.998, Pb 15.659, and Cr 7.547 µg/day/kg body weight; the printed table renders these as 12,185, 17,998, 15,659, and 7547, but the discussion on page 5 confirms the comma is a decimal separator and the µ is rendered as “l” in the PDF extraction.
• The abstract states Pb EDI was 15.66 µg Pb/kg body weight/day and Pb THQ was 4.37 (a rounded form of the 15.659 in Table 3 and the 4.38628 GTHQ in Table 4).
• Table 4 global target hazard quotients were Cu 0.30463, Zn 0.05999, Pb 4.38628, and Cr 0.00503; the combined global THQ was 4.75594.
• Table 4 reports the highest food-level combined target hazard quotient for potatoes at 2.06995, driven by Pb THQi 1.83633.

Methods (brief)

Samples of two fruits and thirteen vegetables were collected during the first two weeks of May 2012 from two wholesale markets surrounding and supplying Boumerdes, about 50 km east of Algiers. Approximately 4 kg of each foodstuff was purchased from different sellers, household-pretreated by washing and removing rotten or inedible parts, homogenized, oven-dried at 105 °C for 24 h, dry-ashed at 450 °C, digested with concentrated nitric acid, filtered, and diluted to 50 mL. Pb, Zn, Cu, and Cr were measured by flame atomic absorption spectrometry on a Unicam Solar-929 with five readings per solution. Food-ingestion rates came from 843 self-administered questionnaires collected at market exits.

Implications

This source contributes Algeria-market occurrence evidence for total Cr, Pb, Zn, and Cu in fresh fruit, leafy vegetables, non-root vegetables, and root/tuber vegetables. The values are dry-weight foodstuff concentrations from a small regional market survey, so they should not be mixed with wet-weight/as-consumed produce values without an explicit basis conversion. The chromium results are total chromium context and are not suitable for Cr(VI)-specific pooling.

Related evidence

• fruits
• Vegetables
• Root vegetables
• Leafy Vegetables
• Fresh Fruit
• Non-Root Vegetables
• Root and Tuber Vegetables
• Leafy / Green Vegetables, Other
• Chromium
• Lead
• Zinc
• Copper

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.