293
Views
9
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

Preliminary assessment of the risk linked to furan ingestion by babies consuming only ready-to-eat food

, , , , &
Pages 654-659 | Received 04 Jul 2012, Accepted 17 Jan 2013, Published online: 13 Mar 2013
 

Abstract

The risk linked to furan ingestion has been assessed in previous papers for Belgian adults and children. The present paper focuses on infants consuming only ready-to-eat baby food. As there is no Belgian baby dietary database, the furan exposure assessment was carried out by using an Italian infant consumption database and Belgian contamination data. The estimated daily intake (EDI) was calculated according to a deterministic methodology. It involved 42 commercially available ready-to-eat baby food and 36 baby consumption records. The mean EDI was 1460 ng*(kgbw*day)−1 which is 3.8 times higher than the 381 ng*(kgbw*day)−1 reported for Belgian adults, and 3.5 times higher than the 419 ng*(kgbw*day)−1 measured for Belgian children. To assess and characterise the risk for babies’ exposure, the margin of exposure (MoE) was calculated. It highlighted that 74% of infants have a MoE < 1000, with a minimum of 140. However, these are only preliminary results as they were calculated from a very small dataset and the infant cytochrome P450 activity is significantly different compared with the adult’s. Therefore, the risk linked to furan ingestion by babies should be assessed in a different manner. To this end, additional data regarding a baby diet as well as a better understanding of furan toxicity for babies are needed to characterise more accurately the risk for infants.

Acknowledgments

The study was funded by the Belgian Federal Public Service of Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment (Contract No. RT 06/01 FURA). The authors also thank the INRAN Research Group for providing access to its baby dietary database.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.