Assessment of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in traditional breads consumed by people in Tehran city of Iran and the calculation of their daily intake

ABSTRACT

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are stable organic pollutants with proven carcinogenic properties. These substances produced as a result of incomplete burning of fossil fuels. Due to PAHs importance in people’s health, we decided to design a study to measure the amount of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in different types of traditional bread produced in Tehran city and calculate their daily intake by consumers. Seventy-five samples of five types of bread including Lavash, Tafton, Sangak, and Barbary and bulk were randomly collected from bakeries in the city of Tehran to investigate the amount of PAHs. All extracted samples were measured by Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The separation of PAHs performed based on a solid phase magnetic extraction (MSPE) method with carbon nanotubes prepared from bread samples and the extracted samples were measured by GC-MS. Our finding showed that the mean values of aromatic hydrocarbon compounds (PAH) in the bread samples range from 0.2 to 8.7 μg kg-1. The maximum amount of aromatic hydrocarbon compounds (PAH) was in Barbary bread with amount of 8.7 µg kg⁻¹ and the minimum value was in industrial bread (bulk) with 0.2 µgkg⁻¹. Also, the mean value ofPAHs content in Sangak, lavash, and bulk (industrial) bread was 2.25, 2.5 and 1.66 µg kg⁻¹, respectively. The highest and lowest mean value of aromatic hydrocarbon polycyclic compounds (PAHs) were obtained in barbaribread around 2.64 μg kg⁻¹ and 1.59 μg kg-1 in Taftoon, respectively. Also,the result of this study showed that the Daily intake of benzopyrene in bread by consumers was below international recommended levels. According to the results, long time and high-temperature baking, also the thickness of the bread, is the main contributor of high concentration of PAHs in the bread.

KEYWORDS:

• Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
• bread
• daily intake
• PAHs

Acknowledgments

Hereby we thank and appreciate the officials and employees of Institute for the Environmental Research.

Disclosure statement

The authors of this article declare that they have no conflict of interests.

Additional information

Funding

This study has been funded and supported by Center for Solid Waste Research (CSWR) of Institute for Environmental Research (IER) in Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) [Grant no. 22747].