Evaluation of daily intake of PCDD/Fs and indicator PCBs in formula-fed Spanish children

Abstract

Human exposure to polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), dibenzofurans (PCDFs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) occurs predominantly via food intake. In this study, the exposure assessment of these contaminants has been estimated for infant formula-fed children up to 1 year of age. PCDD/F concentrations in the infant formulae was low, ranging between 0.09 and 0.17 pg WHO-TEQ g⁻¹ fat and between 0.30 and 0.46 pg WHO-TEQ g⁻¹ fat when results were calculated with the lower and medium bound values, respectively. Indicator PCB contamination levels were below 1 ng g⁻¹ fat in all cases. Thus, the estimated daily intake of PCDD/Fs and indicator PCBs for infants has been assessed taking into account the above-mentioned contamination levels as well as different scenarios of body weight and food consumption data for babies aged 0–12 months. The results vary in the different scenarios considered but, on the whole, the daily estimated dioxin and indicator PCBs intake of the average infant population due to the consumption of infant formulae does not exceed the tolerable daily intake (TDI) of 2 pg WHO-TEQ kg⁻¹ bw day⁻¹ recommended by the Scientific Committee on Food (available at http://ec.europa.eu/food/fs/sc/scf/out90_en.pdf) nor the threshold value of 10 ng kg⁻¹ bw day⁻¹ proposed by the Dutch National Institute of Health and Environment (RIVM) (Baars et al. 2001. Report no. 711701025, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Bilthoven, The Netherlands).

Keywords:

• exposure assessment
• dioxins, TEQs
• PCBs
• infant formulae

Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (Project AGL 2001-2533) and Gobierno de Aragón (Group A01/2003-2008). S. Lorán was supported by a doctoral fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (FP 2001-2727).