Heavy metals and health risk of rice sampled in Yangtze River Delta, China

ABSTRACT

Dietary exposure to heavy metals is threatening human health worldwide. In this study, the concentration of cadmium, mercury, arsenic and chromium in 258 samples of brown rice, grown in Yangtze River Delta where the soils were low-level contaminated, were investigated. In 12 (4.6%) and 10 (3.9%) rice samples the concentrations of Cd and Hg, respectively, exceeded the limit for food. ANOVA showed that Cd and Hg concentrations in rice grains collected from Nanjing and Jiaxing were higher than in the less developed city Yancheng. Students’ t-test showed Cd and Hg were accumulated in hybrid rice higher than in conventional rice. The hazard quotients (HQs) showed a low risk from rice consumption. Conventional rice was recommended to cultivate to reduce the current risk in the soil defined as safe use level in Yangtze River Delta.

KEYWORDS:

• Contaminated paddy
• heavy metal
• health risk
• rice
• Yangtze River Delta

Acknowledgments

We appreciate the funding support from Technology Innovation Center of Ecological Evaluation and Remediation of Agricultural Land in Plain Area, Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China (ZJGCJ202005), the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFD1100103) and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Science (XDA23020401). We also thank the staff from the local governments for facilitating the sample collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Technology Innovation Center of Ecological Evaluation and Remediation of Agricultural Land in Plain Area, Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China (ZJGCJ202005), the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFD1100103) and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Science (XDA23020401).