Overview
Feng and colleagues bought 150 retail cow-milk products across Henan in 2023 and early 2024 and measured chromium, arsenic, cadmium and lead by ICP-MS. They compared four product categories and domestic with imported sterilized milk, and assessed dietary risk by age group. All results were well below Chinese, Codex and EU limits.
Key numbers
- All 150 products: lead mean 0.81 µg/kg (0.12 to 5.59), cadmium 0.124 µg/kg (0.01 to 0.46), arsenic 0.25 µg/kg (0.07 to 0.57) (Table 2, p. 6).
- Lead means by category: sterilized 0.77, pasteurized 0.68, fermented 0.87, modified milk 0.99 µg/kg (Table 2).
- Sterilized milk lead: domestic 0.81 ± 0.64 vs imported 0.74 ± 0.55 µg/kg, not significantly different (Table 3, p. 7).
Methods (brief)
Samples were digested with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide by microwave and read by ICP-MS. Stated detection limits are lead 0.2, arsenic 0.5, chromium 2.0 and cadmium 0.1 µg/kg. No reference material or recovery is reported.
Evidence Fitness
A Research Square preprint, not peer reviewed. Many reported values, including all chromium and arsenic means, are below the paper’s own detection limits, and handling of low readings is not explained, so the low-level values are uncertain; they are flagged. Fat level is not reported. These generic milks are a proxy for half-and-half, semi-skimmed-milk and skim-milk; those pages are not linked.