Hossain et al. 2016 - Lead, cadmium, and chromium in vegetables from Bangladesh

Hossain and colleagues conducted a nationwide surveillance study of five commonly grown vegetables from Bangladesh to assess Pb, total Cr, and Cd contamination. The study covers white potato, green cabbage, red spinach, white radish, and green bean from all 64 districts, with 292 samples collected and metal-specific analytical counts of 285-290. It is useful for geographic-variance evidence because the authors report contamination rates, maxima, medians, and upper quartiles by vegetable type and link Pb occurrence to a broadly distributed national pattern.

Key numbers

The study collected 292 vegetable samples. Because some analyte/sample combinations were not reportable, the overall statistics use Pb n=285, Cd n=286, and Cr n=290.

Overall source-reported results:

By vegetable type, Pb contamination above the source comparison standard was reported in 16/48 white-potato samples (33.33%), 8/49 green-cabbage samples (16.33%), 22/61 red-spinach samples (36.07%), 18/63 white-radish samples (28.57%), and 20/64 green-bean samples (31.25%). Cd contamination was reported in 15/49 white-potato samples (30.61%), 4/49 green-cabbage samples (8.16%), 5/60 red-spinach samples (8.33%), 5/64 white-radish samples (7.81%), and 22/64 green-bean samples (34.37%).

The Table 5 dry-weight Pb maxima by vegetable type were 40.968 ug/g in white potato, 29.794 ug/g in green cabbage, 38.439 ug/g in red spinach, 36.265 ug/g in white radish, and 48.43 ug/g in green bean. Table 4 dry-weight Cd maxima were 5.484 ug/g in white potato, 1.11 ug/g in green cabbage, 5.323 ug/g in red spinach, 3.638 ug/g in white radish, and 5.092 ug/g in green bean.

The authors report that Pb-contaminated samples came from 49 of 64 districts, Cd-contaminated samples from 35 of 64 districts, and Cr-contaminated samples from 2 districts. They describe Pb as broadly distributed and Cd/Cr as more point-source-like in this dataset.

Methods (brief)

Sampling covered five vegetable categories: tuber (white potato), brassica (green cabbage), leafy (red spinach), root (white radish), and fruiting vegetable (green bean). Samples were washed with tap water and distilled water, sliced, oven-dried at 80 C, digested using HNO3-HClO4, and analyzed for Pb, Cr, and Cd by air-acetylene flame AAS. Results are reported on a dry-weight basis for concentration statistics; source comparison standards for Pb and Cd were converted from fresh-weight limits using assumed moisture contents, while Cr was compared to an oral-reference-dose-derived 50 g fresh-weight serving threshold. Cr is total chromium in the analytical method, not Cr(VI).

Implications

• Product and ingredient routing: Adds Bangladesh-market occurrence evidence for root/tuber vegetables, leafy vegetables, brassica vegetables, and green beans.
• Standards workbench: The source is non-US-market evidence. It can support geographic context, priors, and sensitivity checks unless a benchmark pool explicitly admits Bangladesh-market vegetables.
• App: Supports a country/region modifier for vegetables where market or sourcing geography is known.
• Methods: The dry-weight reporting basis and source-side conversion from fresh-weight standards must remain explicit; do not pool with fresh-weight retail values without logged conversion.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• potatoes
• cabbage
• spinach
• root-vegetables
• green-beans
• vegetables
• root-tuber-vegetables
• non-root-vegetables
• leafy-vegetables-other
• lead
• cadmium
• chromium

Verification notes

• The source measures total Cr by AAS. It uses Cr(VI) oral RfD as a conservative comparison point because food-specific Cr limits were not available to the authors, but the occurrence values are not Cr(VI) speciation data.
• White radish does not currently have a dedicated ingredient page; this page routes it to the existing [[ingredients/root-vegetables]] slug.
• The PDF’s license statement identifies Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
• This source is summary-statistic-rich but not sample-level extractable from the PDF alone; the detailed sample table is in Additional file 1, not embedded in the PDF text.

Page history

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