Overview
This study from the same Dhaka University group bought six fruit vegetables at Kawran Bazar in four phases over two months and measured eight metals, including lead and cadmium, by AAS on dried material. Table 1, printed as an image, gives each phase and the four-phase mean. Daily intakes and hazard quotients were all below their reference values.
Key numbers
- Lead, four-phase mean (Table 1, mg/kg dry weight): pumpkin 3.00 (8.00 in phase 4), brinjal 0.50, tomato 0.25, snake gourd 0.25; lady’s finger and cucumber 0.00 in every phase.
- Cadmium, four-phase mean (Table 1, mg/kg dry weight): 0.08 (pumpkin) to 0.18 (brinjal, cucumber).
- Chromium in brinjal reached 13.20 mg/kg in phase 3 (Table 1).
Methods (brief)
Edible parts were washed, oven-dried at 60 to 70 °C and ground; 1 g was digested in nitric and perchloric acid and read on a Varian AA 240. No reference material, recovery or detection limit is reported.
Evidence Fitness
The number of samples per phase and the sampling year are not stated, zeros have no detection limit, and the table prints the cadmium limit as 50 mg/kg, an apparent misprint. Results are dry weight. The cucumber and tomato values differ from Sultana et al. 2019 (same market, 2009), so this is a separate data set, not a reprint. All six foods bear directly on non-root vegetables.