Mycotoxins: Impact on Health and Strategies for Prevention and Detoxification in the Food Chain

ABSTRACT

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites present in agricultural commodities and produced by certain fungi with adverse acute and chronic effects such as genotoxicity and carcinogenicity on humans and animals. This review has focused on strategies to inhibit toxigenic fungal growth and reduce mycotoxin production to maximize consumer safety. Strategies for mycotoxin prevention and control are not expected to be achieved by a single treatment but from a combination of appropriate environmental control, good agricultural and manufacturing practices, suitable storage conditions, proper quality assurance programs, and bio-safe post-harvest detoxifying methods. The most effective methods are those carried out before the fungal infestation and mycotoxin production on the plant.

KEYWORDS:

• Mycotoxins
• fungi
• health
• detoxification
• food safety

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Halal Research Center of IRI, Food and Drug Administration, Tehran, Iran.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest in this study.