Risk assessment of hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD) in the Korean diet

Abstract

Hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD) is a persistent organic pollutant (POP), and a toxin whose primary target organ is the kidney. Consequently, quantifying the amount of HCBD in food is essential for determining whether it poses a health risk. The current study established and validated an analytical method for assessing HCBD in food using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Subsequently, we conducted for the first time a risk assessment of HCBD through Korean food consumption. The ranges of HCBD concentration in 595 food samples were as follows: not detectable (nd)–0.947 ng/g for agricultural products, nd–0.920 ng/g for animal products, nd–1.323 ng/g for fishery products and nd–1.081 ng/g for processed food products. The daily intakes of HCBD for the general population were 0.22 ng/kg body weight (b.w.)/day for agricultural products, 0.30 ng/kg b.w./day for animal products, 0.07 ng/kg b.w./day for fishery products and 0.33 ng/kg b.w./day for processed food products. These exposure levels are below the tolerable daily intake (TDI, 2 μg/kg body weight/day) established by the National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation (NiFDS) in the Republic of Korea. Taking into account the risk index of 0.011%, we can, therefore, conclude that there are no health concerns for the Korean population.

Keywords:

• Contamination
• monitoring
• POPs
• risk assessment
• hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety under Grant [20161MFDS024] in 2020.