Ogungbemi et al. 2026 - heavy metals in treated dried catfish

Ogungbemi and coauthors tested dried catfish from Bodija market in Ibadan, Nigeria for heavy metals, aflatoxins, and organochlorine pesticide residues before and after household-style detoxification treatments. The heavy-metal table reports arsenic, cadmium, copper, iron, and lead in untreated dried catfish and after lactic-acid-rich corn-steep liquor, vinegar-rich acetic acid, and brine. Vinegar produced the largest reported reductions for As, Cd, Fe, and Pb, but the untreated values remain the primary occurrence data for the dried catfish matrix.

Key numbers

Table 1 reports mean ± SEM heavy-metal concentrations in µg/g for three replicates. Values are equivalent to mg/kg on the same mass basis.

The same study reports pesticide residues and aflatoxins in the dried catfish. For context, untreated DDT was 163.64 ± 11.45 ppb and untreated aflatoxin B1 was 15.36 ± 2.45 ppb, with reductions after treatment. Those values are not heavy-metal evidence but indicate the paper’s broader food-safety framing.

Methods (brief)

The study bought 20 kg of dried catfish from vendors at Bodija market in Ibadan, stored the samples in sterile bags, homogenized the fish, and tested untreated and treated portions. Heavy-metal analysis digested samples, brought the digests to volume with 1% nitric acid, and measured As, Cd, Cu, Fe, and Pb using flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry on a Shimadzu AA-6300. The paper reports arsenic as elemental As without speciation, so this page records it as total arsenic.

Implications

Certification: This source contributes dried freshwater-fish occurrence evidence for total arsenic, cadmium, lead, copper, and iron in a Nigeria market sample. Treatment rows should be kept separate from untreated occurrence values because they are intervention results, not as-sold values.

Courses: Useful for showing why intervention studies can still provide baseline as-sold contamination values if the untreated control is reported.

App: Adds Nigeria-market dried catfish context; the treated rows should not be used to estimate ordinary consumer exposure unless a product or preparation workflow explicitly includes those treatments.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• fish-freshwater
• fresh-fish
• freshwater-fish
• fish
• arsenic
• cadmium
• lead
• copper
• iron

Verification notes

• The fetched filename classified this as a vinegar cadmium gap; the actual source is a dried catfish detoxification study where vinegar is one treatment arm.
• The PDF title page gives DOI 10.47430/ujmr.26111.010, volume 11 issue 1, pages 99-105, received February 26, 2026 and accepted May 17, 2026.
• Arsenic speciation is not provided; total arsenic must not be used as inorganic arsenic.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.