Title : Occurrence and dietary risk assessment of aflatoxins in Saudi Arabia
Abstract:
Background: Chronic dietary exposure to aflatoxins (AFs) is considered as a major public health concern, since they are recognized as hepatotoxic, mutagenic, genotoxic, and immunosuppressive toxins. Several food commodities consumed in Saudi Arabia (SA) are susceptible to AFs contamination due to warm and humid climate.
Aim: this study aimed to represent and analyze the levels of AFs (AFB1, AFB2, AFG1, AFG2) and total aflatoxins (AFT) extrapolated from the National Program for Monitoring Contaminants (NPMC) in 4 food groups mostly contaminated with AFs. In addition to estimate the chronic dietary intake of AFs for adult group and calculate the related cancer risk arriving from the exposure.
Methods: During the period of 2015 to 2020, 2,388 food samples were collected and analyzed under the NPMC for the occurrence of AFs using HPLC. Chronic dietary exposure assessment to each individual AF and AFT were then carried out based on the occurrence levels and the consumption data. Margin of exposure (MoE) approach was applied to characterise the risks of AFB1 exposure based on the BMDL10 value of 0.4 μg/kg body weight (bw) per day, and the potential cancer risk for the incidence of hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC) was estimated using the carcinogenic potency of AFs in SA.
Results: The results revealed that 12.1% of the analyzed samples were contaminated with AFs ranging from not detected to 4.8 μg/kg and from 1.08 to 5.6 μg/kg in the mean lower bound and upper bound (LB and UB) concentrations respectively. Highest percentage of positive samples was found in spices, while the highest concentration of AFT was noticed in nuts and seeds group, which was found in peanut butter. The mean chronic dietary intake of AFB1 for adult population was estimated to be 0.21 and 0.55 ng/kg bw per day. Cereals and grains contributed the most to AFB1 exposure and rice was the most food item in contribution. MoEs were estimated at 1902.4 and 722.1 while the estimated liver cancer risk ranged between 0.002 and 0.008 cancer cases/year/ 100,000 persons indicating a potential risks for population in SA.
Conclusion: Based on GEMS/Food cluster diets tool, cereals and grains contributed the most to AFB1 exposure and rice was the most food item in contribution followed by peanut butter. Even though AFs contamination in SA is low, AFs considered as potent genotoxic contaminant; therefore, surveillance on AFs in food commodities and monitoring. Should continue to protect the public health and to guarantee that human exposure levels are kept as low as possible.
Audience Take Away:
- The study showed that some of the chili powder and cumin products sold in the traditional markets are contaminated
- Chili powder was most frequently contaminated with aflatoxins which requires close attention to such product
- Aims to provide information that may help decision makers and risk assessors to identify the current situations of such stores in terms of the contamination levels of aflatoxins in the products
