Heavy Metals and PAHs in Meat, Milk, and Seafood From Augusta Area (Southern Italy): Contamination Levels, Dietary Intake, and Human Exposure Assessment

Overview

Di Bella et al. measured heavy metals and PAHs in seafood, meat, and milk from the Augusta area in Southern Italy. The paper is direct occurrence evidence for seafood, beef, pork, and raw milk in a polluted-area context. It is not infant-formula evidence; the wishlist hit came from infant-formula comparison terms in the paper rather than sampled formula products.

Key numbers

Table 5 reports concentrations in ug/g.

Matrix	tAs mean +/- SD	Cd mean +/- SD	Cr mean +/- SD	tHg mean +/- SD	Ni mean +/- SD	Pb mean +/- SD	Zn mean +/- SD
Beef	0.012 +/- 0.008	<LOD	<LOD	<LOD	<LOD	0.019 +/- 0.027	48.94 +/- 11.94
Pork	0.015 +/- 0.012	<LOD	<LOD	<LOD	<LOD	0.024 +/- 0.034	44.91 +/- 13.43
Cow milk	<LOD	<LOD	<LOD	<LOD	<LOD	0.002 +/- 0.001	2.92 +/- 0.96
Sheep/goat milk	<LOD	<LOD	<LOD	<LOD	<LOD	0.002 +/- 0.002	2.77 +/- 1.18
Total seafood products	7.06 +/- 6.17	0.002 +/- 0.002	0.019 +/- 0.011	0.99 +/- 1.02	0.010 +/- 0.014	0.09 +/- 0.18	6.36 +/- 5.27

One European barracuda (n = 1) contained 0.78 µg/g total mercury. Risk calculations treat inorganic arsenic as 2 percent of total arsenic in seafood and 70% in terrestrial foods, following EFSA. The authors report that all heavy metals were detected in seafood products, while most were below LOD in beef, pork, and milk. Seafood had the highest measured total arsenic, mercury, and lead means. Mercury drove the main non-cancer risk signal across consumption-weighted exposure: TTHQ-Hg exceeded 1 in every age class, with both cow milk and seafood contributing per the paper’s narrative. Seafood-only THQ-Hg was greater than 1 for babies (2.38), children (2.23), and teenagers (1.68). Cow milk THQ-Hg also exceeded 1 in babies (10.19) and children (1.90), but that cow milk signal is an artifact of half-LOD substitution because every cow milk Hg measurement was below the 0.041 mg/kg LOD; the seafood THQ-Hg values rest on measured concentrations and are the more defensible reading of mercury risk in this dataset.

Methods (brief)

Seafood edible tissues were digested and analyzed for As, Cd, Cr, Ni, Pb, and Zn by ICP-MS; mercury was measured by direct mercury analysis. Milk and meat heavy-metal methods were validated against matrix-specific criteria and certified reference materials. The authors converted some seafood concentrations to wet-weight basis for exposure assessment and used half-LOD substitution for values below detection.

Implications

This source contributes polluted-area occurrence evidence for seafood and terrestrial animal products. It should route to seafood, marine fish/shellfish, beef, pork, and milk/dairy contexts, with a clear jurisdiction and contamination-source caveat. It should not fill infant-formula rows, because no infant formula was sampled.

Update history

No substantive edit history is available in this build. The full commit record is available in git.

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Download evidence packet

Institute of Contaminant Standards. (2026). Heavy Metals and PAHs in Meat, Milk, and Seafood From Augusta Area (Southern Italy): Contamination Levels, Dietary Intake, and Human Exposure Assessment. Heavy Metal Index. https://heavymetalindex.com/sources/dibella2020-augusta-meat-milk-seafood-metals

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