Overview
The authors bought ten popular protein powder supplements from a Turkish online platform in 2025 and measured cadmium, lead, arsenic and mercury by ICP-MS, with one product per sample analyzed in triplicate. Nine products list whey protein concentrate or isolate as the main ingredient and one is egg white powder. Hazard indexes stayed below 1 for one and three servings a day.
Key numbers
- Lead: 39.01 ± 1.16 to 122.90 ± 8.03 µg/kg, highest in product S2 (Table 2).
- Mercury: 7.25 ± 1.34 to 95.36 ± 7.21 µg/kg, highest in S2 (Table 2).
- Cadmium: 4.42 ± 1.08 to 44.17 ± 3.21 µg/kg; arsenic: 4.27 ± 1.54 to 37.27 ± 2.24 µg/kg, highest in the egg white product S5 (Table 2).
- Hazard index 0.03 to 0.17 for one serving and up to 0.50 for three servings (Table 2).
Methods (brief)
Microwave digestion with hydrogen peroxide and nitric acid; ICP-MS (no-gas mode for cadmium, lead and mercury, helium mode for arsenic). No detection limits, reference material or recovery data are reported.
Evidence Fitness
Small sample (ten products, one package each) with no reported quality control, so values are indicative. The products are flavored supplement powders containing whey protein, not whey itself, so this is a proxy for the whey page and does not link it. Abstract ranges differ slightly from Table 2 in the last digit; Table 2 is used. The PDF prints the DOI with a period in place of the slash.