Overview
Gürbüz and Çelikel Güngör measured 15 elements, including lead, cadmium, arsenic, chromium and nickel, by ICP-MS in 30 traditional cheeses (six per province) bought in five Southeastern Anatolian provinces in autumn 2020. Table 3 gives overall mean ± SD and median (range); Table 4 gives per-province results with significance tests. Mercury was not measured.
Key numbers
- All cheeses: lead 1.12 ± 0.83 mg/kg (median 0.88, range 0.25 to 3.38); cadmium 0.36 ± 0.07 mg/kg; arsenic 0.02 ± 0.01 mg/kg (Table 3).
- Şırnak herbed cheese: lead 2.25 ± 0.90 mg/kg; Şanlıurfa cheese: lead 0.40 ± 0.09 mg/kg (Table 4).
Methods (brief)
Microwave digestion of 0.2 g cheese with 70% nitric acid, ICP-MS (Bruker Aurora M90). LOD and LOQ per element are in Table 1 (lead LOD 0.0031 mg/kg). Calibration standards were re-measured every ten samples; no certified reference material or recovery is reported.
Evidence Fitness
Six samples per cheese type and no recovery or reference-material checks. Every sample has lead above 0.25 mg/kg and cadmium above 0.27 mg/kg, which is far higher than most cheese surveys, so analytical bias cannot be excluded. Arsenic is total arsenic. Ripened traditional cheeses are a proxy only for fromage-frais, cheese-pizza, cheese-crackers and macaroni-and-cheese, which are not linked.