Heavy metals and PAHs in mussels on the Serbian market and consumer exposure

Overview

Novakov and colleagues measured lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, and PAHs in mussels sold on the Serbian market. The metal occurrence values are direct shellfish finished-food data from fresh and frozen mussel-meat samples. Arsenic is reported as total arsenic and mercury as total mercury; the paper does not measure inorganic arsenic or methylmercury.

Key numbers

Table 3 reports heavy-metal concentrations in fresh and frozen mussels in mg/kg:

The abstract summarizes the full-sample concentration ranges as lead (Pb) 0.01-0.74 mg/kg, cadmium (Cd) 0.01-0.38 mg/kg, mercury (Hg) 0.01-0.15 mg/kg, and arsenic (As) 1.12-5.87 mg/kg.

The paper states that lead, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic were found in all 84 mussel samples. Lead and cadmium concentrations above the method LOQ had 100% frequency. The source reports significant variation for arsenic between fresh and frozen mussels (p <= 0.01).

Methods (brief)

Samples containing 50 g of mussel meat were randomly collected from Serbian supermarkets and fish markets. Heavy-metal samples used 0.2 g homogenized sample, microwave digestion with diluted nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide, dilution to 100 mL, and ICP-MS on an Agilent 7700 using isotopes 208Pb, 111Cd, 201Hg, and 75As. PAHs were measured separately by QuEChERS extraction and GC-MS.

Implications

This source supplies direct Serbian-market shellfish occurrence evidence for Pb, Cd, total Hg, and total As. The arsenic and mercury data are useful as total-element context only: total As must not be treated as inorganic arsenic, and total Hg must not be treated as methylmercury. Fresh and frozen mussels should remain distinguishable because arsenic means differed materially and the sample origins differed by form.

Update history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git.