Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) exposure through cooking environment and assessment strategies for human health implications

Abstract

The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons’ (PAHs) exposure through day to day cooking activities has been a serious concern for human health due to their carcinogenic nature. Given the Covid-19 conditions, where people are spending extended time indoors, the likely exposure to these compounds will increase for the members involved/not involved in cooking. In this context, this review summarizes different studies undertaken worldwide on PAHs from cooking activities, the sources of exposure (fumes/emissions, dust/depositions), effect of scale (households/restaurants/neighborhoods) of cooking, monitoring process, risk assessment (air sampling and urinary metabolites), global distribution pattern. Proportionately higher number of studies was focused on cooking fumes and emissions while very limited studies aimed at kitchen depositions and dust. Most of the studies have not reported the size of particulate matter considered for determining PAHs exposure from cooking fumes and emissions. The evaluation of reported data becomes more complicated due to difference in sampling and expression units, the number and types of PAHs (parent, oxygenated-PAHs, i.e., o-PAHs, nitro-PAHs, i.e., n-PAHs) studied/found, lack of other intrinsic information (site and control parameters), lack of specific regulations etc. Therefore, such studies require method standardization for future policy development. This review also highlights the gaps and challenges in existing knowledge and future prospects.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)
• cooking activities
• indoor air
• human exposure
• depositions
• dust

Acknowledgments

Author Dr. Lochan Singh is thankful to NIFTEM and CSIR for providing fellowship for conducting research work and also to Dr. Vijay Singh Sharanagat for the support provided in data representation.

Declaration of interest statement

Authors declare that they do not have known conflict of interest.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Submission declaration

We declare that the manuscript has not been published previously and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. The manuscript is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.