Exposure assessment and risk characterization of aflatoxins intake through consumption of maize products in the adult populations of Serbia, Croatia and Greece

ABSTRACT

The main objective of this research was to perform an exposure assessment of aflatoxins intake through consumption of maize products in Serbia, Croatia, and Greece. Food consumption survey of maize-based products has been performed during 2017 in the three countries with at least 1,000 interviewees per country covering their dietary habits and body weight. Values for the concentration of aflatoxins were extracted from available research published in the last ten years. Finally, a Monte Carlo analysis of 100,000 iterations was performed to estimate the intake of aflatoxins from consumption of maize-based products. Results revealed that the estimated average exposure of adults to aflatoxins, from maize consumption, in each of the three countries was between 0.44 ng kg⁻¹ bw day⁻¹ and 5.59 ng kg⁻¹ bw day⁻¹. Margin of exposure values for the mean exposure levels, in all three countries, were between 30 and 389. Estimations for hepatocellular carcinoma cases/year/10⁵ individuals, depending on the HBsAg+ prevalence, were 0.075–0.098, 0.006–0.008 and 0.020–0.026 for Serbia, Croatia and Greece, respectively.

KEYWORDS:

• Maize products
• aflatoxins
• exposure assessment
• risk characterization
• Monte Carlo simulation

Acknowledgments

This work was performed within the National Project number TR31034, supported by the Ministry of the Education and Science, Republic of Serbia.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. This publication reflects only the authors’ view(s), and the Community is not liable for any use made of the information contained therein.