Overview
Yang and colleagues measured 22 elements, including arsenic, cadmium, chromium, nickel, antimony and cobalt, in raw Bactrian camel milk from three regions of Xinjiang, China, and compared Tacheng camel milk with cow, goat and horse milk from the same county. The aim was nutritional profiling and species or origin authentication, not contaminant surveillance. Tacheng camel milk printed far higher values than Altay and Ili for several trace elements, but the paper gives no quality-assurance data for any region.
Key numbers
- Arsenic (total) in camel milk: Altay 21.25 ± 7.29, Tacheng 87.79 ± 48.56, Ili 31.65 ± 24.90 ng/g (Table 7, p. 10).
- Cadmium in camel milk: Altay 2.10 ± 0.26, Tacheng 65.96 ± 42.69, Ili 2.11 ± 0.62 ng/g (Table 7).
- Chromium in camel milk: Altay 32.34 ± 5.88, Tacheng 93.11 ± 37.96, Ili 35.78 ± 5.99 ng/g; nickel 92.41 ± 25.77, 158.45 ± 44.11 and 110.12 ± 36.27 ng/g (Table 7).
- Tacheng cow, goat and horse milk: cadmium 10.31 ± 4.73, 3.02 ± 0.50 and 2.21 ± 0.31 ng/g; arsenic 30.73 ± 11.09, 22.54 ± 15.27 and 22.55 ± 13.08 ng/g (Table 3, p. 6).
Methods (brief)
Milk was frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80 °C. A 0.5 g aliquot was microwave-digested in nitric acid; trace elements were read by ICP-MS and major elements plus zinc, iron, copper, manganese, strontium and barium by ICP-OES, with six-point external calibration and a reagent blank. Results are mean ± SD of 8 samples per group, apparently on a wet-weight basis (not labeled). Lead and mercury were not measured.
Evidence Fitness
Small sample (8 per group) from a single week in May 2024. No limit of detection, certified reference material or recovery is stated. The Tacheng camel values for beryllium, cobalt, cadmium, vanadium and antimony all print near 65 ng/g with SD near 42, roughly 20 to 60 times the Altay and Ili values; with no QA data stated for Tacheng, treat the Tacheng values (camel and the same-site cow, goat and horse milk) as unreviewed. Altay and Ili camel milk values are more consistent with other camel milk reports. The Discussion mentions lead, but the paper reports no lead data. No regulatory limit is printed.