Probabilistic health risk assessment and concentration of trace elements in meat, egg, and milk of Iran

ABSTRACT

This research was performed to assess the concentration and health risk of eight trace elements (manganese (Mn), mercury (Hg), copper (Cu), lead (Pb), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), cadmium (Cd), and arsenic (As)) in animal product samples (n = 120) in Markazi province of Iran by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). Some trace elements such as Mn, Hg, Cu, Pb, Fe, and Zn were detected in samples while Cd and As non-detected. Fe had the highest mean level of trace elements in meat samples (1551.28 ± 83.25 μg/kg). The levels of Pb and Hg in some samples were upper than the limit of the European Commission (EC) and the Institute of Standards and Industrial Research of Iran (ISIRI), International/National Standards for Heavy Metals, and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Deterministic and probabilistic health risk assessment approaches to evaluate of the target hazard quotients (THQ) and carcinogenic risks (CR) index were applied. The Monte Carlo probability distributions revealed that the rank order of total target hazard quotient (TTHQ) was milk > meat > egg. The non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic index of toxic elements indicated that exposed population in Markazi province was safe (1> THQ, 10⁻⁴> CR), except Hg exposure for children in milk.

KEYWORDS:

• Trace elements
• ICP-OES
• milk
• egg
• meat
• health risk assessment

Acknowledgments

This is the thesis of Fereshteh Karimi that was inducted at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (environmental health laboratory).

Disclosure statement

This article’s authors state that there is no competitive interest.

Authors’ contributions

Mohammad Rezaei: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Fereshteh Karimi: Writing- Original draft preparation and Data curation, Mahsa Alikord: Investigation and Visualization, Nabi Shariatifar: Design of study, Supervision, Rewriting- Original draft preparation. Majid Arabameri: Software, Validation. Mojtaba Moazzen: Writing- Original draft preparation

Additional information

Funding

The current research has not used any financial support.