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Risk Assessment of Lead and Cadmium in Some Food Supplements Available on the Romanian Market

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Overview

Mustatea and colleagues measured lead and cadmium by graphite furnace AAS in 41 food supplements bought in Bucharest in 2018 and 2019, from herbal tinctures, teas and tablets to zeolite and clay powders, omega-3 capsules and a casein protein powder. Each product is reported as a triplicate mean with SD and assessed with daily intake, hazard quotient and cancer risk estimates at the maximum label dose.

Key numbers

  • Highest lead: 1.274 ± 0.013 mg/kg in a herbal antioxidant tablet (SV26); mint tea 1 (SV14) 0.643 ± 0.011 mg/kg (Table 3).
  • Highest cadmium: 0.2030 ± 0.0009 mg/kg in herbal tea 3 (SV13); herbal teas 1 and 2 at 0.1930 and 0.1740 mg/kg (Table 3).
  • Zeolite and clay products: lead mostly below 0.002 mg/kg; cadmium up to 0.0480 mg/kg (SM2, SM9) (Table 3).
  • No product exceeded the EU limits of 3.0 mg/kg lead and 1.0 mg/kg cadmium (Section 3).

Methods (brief)

Half a gram of homogenized sample was microwave-digested with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide and diluted to 50 mL, then analyzed by GFAAS with Zeeman background correction in triplicate. SRM 3280 recoveries exceeded 95%. Solution LODs were 1.2 µg/L for lead and 0.2 µg/L for cadmium.

Evidence Fitness

Per-product triplicate means with SDs, one unit per product. The non-detect thresholds and some low values printed in Table 3 are well below what the stated solution LOD and dilution would allow, and the text misprints the lead maximum as 1274 mg/kg. Liquid products are reported in mg/kg without a stated basis. None of the products is a vitamin or mineral premix, so for the vitamin-mineral-premix page this is at most a distant proxy and that page is not linked.

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