Contamination and health risk assessment of lead, arsenic, cadmium, and aluminum from a total diet study of Jilin Province, China

Overview

Wang and colleagues measured lead, total arsenic, cadmium, and aluminum in Jilin Province total-diet-study food groups. The study compares Songhua River Basin and other-area composites and uses consumption data from 7700 residents to estimate dietary exposure. Arsenic occurrence values are total arsenic; the risk assessment conservatively evaluates total arsenic (As) as if it were inorganic As.

Key numbers

The abstract reports overall mean concentrations of 0.0189 mg/kg lead (Pb), 0.0691 mg/kg As, 0.0085 mg/kg cadmium (Cd), and 9.309 mg/kg aluminum (Al) across the total diet. Table 3 reports food-group means:

Table 2 and the results text identify the highest product-level concentrations:

Table 5 reports mean dietary exposure:

The contribution analysis (§3.4) reports potatoes and their products as the main Pb exposure source at 24.89%, followed by beans/nuts/products at 17.21%. Aquatic products and derivatives contributed 52.14% of As exposure, followed by vegetables and vegetable products at 34.82%. Vegetables and vegetable products contributed 31.3% of Cd exposure, followed by beans/nuts/products at 19.97%. Cereals and cereal products contributed 70.22% of Al exposure, followed by vegetables and vegetable products at 7.71%. The Discussion section reports a different Al figure of 77.22% for cereals and cereal products; recomputing from Table 6 confirms the §3.4 value (70.22%) is correct.

Methods (brief)

The study used a total diet study approach in which food groups were purchased, cooked or prepared according to local methods, homogenized, and analyzed as mixed-food samples. The 12 food groups included cereals, beans/nuts, potatoes, meat, eggs, aquatic products, milk/dairy, vegetables, fruits, sugar, drinking water/beverages, and alcoholic drinks. Solid samples of 0.3-0.5 g and liquid samples of 1.0 g were digested with nitric acid and analyzed by ICP-MS. The certified reference material GBW 10011 was used for quality control, with reported relative standard deviations of 4.51%-9.44%.

Implications

This source contributes China/Jilin total-diet occurrence and exposure context for Pb, total As, Cd, and Al across broad prepared-food groups. It is especially relevant for cereal/aluminum context and for distinguishing aquatic-product total-As occurrence from inorganic-arsenic evidence. The paper reports that deep-fried dough sticks exceeded the Chinese limit for aluminum in fried cereals, but it does not report brand-level results.

Related evidence

• Milk and Dairy
• Noodles
• Fish — freshwater (tilapia, catfish, trout)
• Fish — marine, non-predatory (sardines, anchovies, salmon, cod)

Update history

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