Demir and Agaoglu 2023 - toxic elements in powdered infant formulas, Turkiye
This study measured eleven elements (Al, Mn, Co, Cu, Zn, total As, Se, Cd, Sn, Pb, and total Hg) in 72 powdered infant formula samples from the Turkish market by ICP-MS and estimated age-group dietary intakes. The sample set is entirely powdered formula and largely cow-milk based, with groups covering standard infant formula, follow-on formula, growing-up milk, premature formula, low-birth-weight formula, and specialty formulas.
Key numbers
Source-reported occurrence highlights (Table 4 and results text; concentration units as reported, ug/g or mg/kg equivalent for powdered product):
| Element | Source-reported result |
|---|---|
| Al | Overall average about 1.755 +/- 0.708 ug/g; observed range 0.08-7.93 ug/g. |
| Mn | Range 0.242-20.828 ug/g; nine samples (12.5%) above the source-cited limit values. |
| Co | Detected at low ug/g levels in the formula groups; LOD 0.0114 ppb. |
| Cu | Detected in all formulas; the highest anonymized product-group mean was 2.637 ug/g. |
| Zn | Range 16.148-69.179 ug/g; two anonymized product groups exceeded the source-cited 36 mg/kg limit. |
| tAs | Overall average about 0.529 mg/kg; three highest anonymized product-group means were 1.325, 1.080, and 0.931 mg/kg. |
| Se | Measured and included in intake calculations; LOD 0.3157 ppb. |
| Cd | Not detected in one sample; below source-cited limits in 61 samples (85%); nine samples (12.5%) exceeded the cited infant-formula limit. |
| Sn | Not detected in 14 of 16 anonymized brand groups and detected only in two groups; source-cited limit 50 mg/kg. |
| Pb | Overall average about 0.071 ug/g, range 0.010-0.141 ug/g. |
| tHg | Overall average about 0.0086 +/- 0.003 ug/g, range 0.0035-0.0155 ug/g. |
Method performance (Table 3; ICP-MS LOD in ppb):
| Element | LOD |
|---|---|
| Al | 0.1434 |
| Mn | 0.0377 |
| Co | 0.0114 |
| Cu | 0.0658 |
| Zn | 0.1155 |
| As | 0.0413 |
| Se | 0.3157 |
| Cd | 0.0100 |
| Sn | 0.0252 |
| Pb | 0.0051 |
| Hg | 0.0060 |
All method-spike recoveries in Table 3 are reported as 99.0%.
Methods (brief)
The study purchased 72 powdered infant formula products from 16 anonymized brands in Turkiye. Table 1 groups the products by age label and use context: 0-6 month infant formula, 6-9 month follow-on milk, 9-12 month follow-on milk, 12-36 month growing-up milk, premature formula, low-birth-weight formula, and additional specialty formula groups. Samples were digested by microwave digestion and analyzed by ICP-MS. The digestion system was Milestone Ethos Up; standards and internal-standard additions included Bi and Au for Hg stabilization. Calibration standards ranged from 0.5 to 100 ppb.
Implications
Standards work: This is high-value powdered infant formula occurrence evidence because it covers a relatively large Turkish market sample (n=72) and includes the full toxic-element panel plus nutrient elements. The strongest HMT&C signals are Pb, Cd, total As, Al, Mn, and total Hg.
Courses: Useful for showing how formula-category subgroups and age labels affect exposure calculations. It also illustrates why total arsenic cannot be treated as inorganic arsenic unless the method actually speciates.
App: Route as powdered formula occurrence evidence for Turkish-market cow-milk-based formula. Use total arsenic and total mercury labels; do not infer iAs or methylmercury fractions from this paper.
Microbiome: Not addressed.
Wiki pages this source may touch
- aluminum
- manganese
- cobalt
- copper
- zinc
- arsenic-total
- cadmium
- tin
- lead
- mercury-total
- infant-formula-powder
- non-soy-infant-formula
- milk-and-dairy
- infant-formula-powder
- infant-formula-powder-non-soy
- infant-formula-dairy
- eu-1881-2006-contaminants-superseded
Verification notes
- Fresh auto-fetch ingest 2026-05-19 from the gap-driven infant-formula wishlist. The same DOI appeared in four downloaded wishlist rows targeting Cu, Mn, Se, and Zn; this page is the canonical source page for those duplicate downloads.
- Strict brand firewall: the paper uses anonymized brand numbers in tables and results. This page reports aggregate and range values only, and does not reproduce or rank anonymized brand rows.
- Speciation: arsenic and mercury are reported as total As and total Hg because the method was ICP-MS after digestion with no HPLC/IC separation.
- The source text uses both ug/g and mg/kg for some results; these are equivalent for powdered product concentration and are preserved where the source uses them.
- Methods vendor/equipment/reference-material names are retained under Part 12 Exception 2.
Page history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page. 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.