Dietary Lead Exposure and Associated Health Risks in Guangzhou, China

Overview

Wang and colleagues estimated dietary lead exposure for Guangzhou residents using lead concentrations from the local food safety risk monitoring system. The occurrence dataset included 6339 samples across 27 food categories collected in 2014-2017. The paper reports lead only; it does not measure arsenic, cadmium, mercury, chromium, or tin.

Key numbers

Table 2 reports lead concentrations in food in mg/kg:

The source states that lead concentrations were below the LOD in 28.4% of samples, for an overall detection rate of 71.6%. It identifies the highest average lead concentrations as algae (dry) at 0.3947 mg/kg, dried seafood at 0.3219 mg/kg, mollusks at 0.1384 mg/kg, edible fungi at 0.0729 mg/kg, wheat flour and products at 0.0509 mg/kg, bulb vegetables at 0.0505 mg/kg, meat products at 0.0394 mg/kg, leafy vegetables at 0.0354 mg/kg, rice and rice products at 0.0341 mg/kg, and preserved eggs at 0.0341 mg/kg.

The abstract and Tables 3-4 report these exposure/risk summary values:

Table 3 reports total-population contribution fractions of 21.42% for rice and rice products, 20.01% for leafy vegetables, 11.75% for wheat flour and products, 5.45% for pig meat, 5.33% for fruiting vegetables, 4.74% for algae, 3.64% for flour products with fillings, and 3.47% for fruit.

Methods (brief)

Lead concentration data came from the Guangzhou food safety risk monitoring system for 2014-2017. Investigators acting as consumers purchased samples from retailers including supermarkets, restaurants, agricultural product wholesale markets, and stores. Samples were placed in sealed plastic bags and sent to the laboratory for cryopreservation until digestion. Aliquots of 0.3-0.8 g were digested in 5 mL nitric acid plus 2 mL 30% hydrogen peroxide in a microwave decomposition system, then analyzed by ICP-MS. Non-detected results were assigned a value of 1/2 LOD for occurrence and dietary exposure calculations; the authors report a lead LOD of 0.003 mg/kg.

Related evidence

• Milk and Dairy

Update history

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