The concentration and health risk assessment of nitrate in vegetables and fruits samples of Iran

Abstract

This investigation was aimed to assess nitrate concentration and its health risk in vegetable and fruit samples collected from Iran. The mean nitrate level in samples ranged from 66.70 to 1072.60 mg kg⁻¹. The nitrate concentration in samples including leek (1070.79 ± 404.22 mg k⁻¹ (carrot (339.50 ± 400.84 mg k⁻¹), and watermelon (90.00 ± 136.73 mg kg⁻¹) was higher while in other samples, including potato (129.30 ± 86.51 mg kg⁻¹), onion (82.25 ± 92.22 mg kg⁻¹), tomato (110.93 ± 166.08 mg kg⁻¹), lettuce (1072.60 ± 644.17 mg kg⁻¹), and melon (66.70 ± 45.41 mg kg⁻¹) were lower than the permissible limit. The EDI and target hazard quotient (THQ) of nitrate (2.25 mg/kg bw/day) was less than EDI value (3.70 mg/kg bw/day) and 1, respectively.

Keywords:

• Nitrate
• risk assessment
• Hamadan
• vegetable
• Iran

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge food and drug administration of Hamadan University of medical science for support of this project.

Disclosure statement

All authors have declared that they don’t have any conflict of interest in publishing this research.