Overview
Cıdıroğlu and Aydın bought 100 heat-treated drinking milks in Istanbul markets in 2011, including UHT semi-skimmed and skim milk, and analyzed them for lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic by ICP-OES. Lead was found in 66 samples, 59 of them above the 0.02 mg/kg limit, and cadmium in 64; mercury and arsenic were not found in any sample. The paper is in Turkish with English table titles; samples were collected ten years before publication.
Key numbers
- Lead mean ± SD: UHT semi-skimmed 0.1082 ± 0.0101, UHT skim 0.1838 ± 0.0515, UHT whole 0.1477 ± 0.0197, pasteurised 0.0630 ± 0.0420, UHT flavored 0.2088 ± 0.0815 mg/kg (Table 1).
- Cadmium mean ± SD: UHT semi-skimmed 0.1011 ± 0.0475, UHT skim 0.0166 ± 0.0241, UHT whole 0.0483 ± 0.1397 mg/kg; not detected in pasteurised milk (Table 2).
- Text maximums: lead 1.51 mg/kg (flavored milk), cadmium 0.69 mg/kg (UHT whole milk) (pp. 233, 235).
Methods (brief)
Samples of 0.3 to 1 g were digested in nitric acid in a closed microwave system and read on a Varian 710-ES ICP-OES, with hydride generation for mercury and arsenic. No detection limits, certified reference materials or recoveries are reported.
Evidence Fitness
Direct retail data for semi-skimmed (reduced-fat) and skim milk, but analytical quality is weak: ICP-OES without stated detection limits or quality control, lead values far above most retail milk surveys, a table with µg/kg labels that contradict its mg/kg limit, and a text maximum (1.51 mg/kg) that cannot sit inside the table’s top class. Treat the levels as low-confidence and unusually high.