Dietary intake of aflatoxins in the adult Malaysian population – an assessment of risk

Abstract

Exposure to aflatoxins in the adult Malaysian diet was estimated by analysing aflatoxins in 236 food composites prepared as “ready for consumption”. Dietary exposure to aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) ranged from 24.3 to 34.00 ng/kg b.w./day (lower to upper bound), with peanuts being the main contributor. Estimated liver cancer risk from this exposure was 0.61–0.85 cancers/100,000 population/year, contributing 12.4%–17.3% of the liver cancer cases. Excluding AFB1 occurrence data higher than 15 µg/kg reduced exposure by 65%–91% to 2.27–11.99 ng/kg b.w./day, reducing the cancer risk to 0.06–0.30 cancers/100,000 population/year (contributing 1.2%–6.1% liver cancer cases). Reducing further the ML of AFB1 from 15 to 5 µg/kg yielded 3%–7% greater drop in the exposure to 0.47–10.26 ng/kg b.w./day with an estimated risk of 0.01–0.26 cancers/100,000 population/year (0.2%–5.1% liver cancer cases attributed to dietary AFB1). These findings indicate that current MLs are adequate in protecting Malaysians’ health.

Keywords:

• aflatoxin B1 (AFB1)
• total aflatoxins (AFT)
• dietary exposure
• liver cancer risk

Acknowledgements

The Food Safety and Quality Division and National Public Health Laboratory, Ministry of Health, Malaysia, are acknowledged for providing financial as well as other necessary resources for this study.