Probabilistic determination of a maximum acceptable level of contaminant to reduce the risk of overexposure for a novel or emerging food: the case of cadmium in edible seaweed in the French population

Abstract

European and French populations are overexposed to cadmium (Cd) through their foods. The risk of increased cadmium exposure for consumers needs to be limited by reduced maximum limits (ML) for novel foodstuffs such as edible seaweed in France. The objective was to derive a low and protective cadmium concentration in edible seaweeds to limit cadmium overexposure in consumers. To do so, we applied a probabilistic approach to the data collected on French seaweed consumers, taking into account other sources of exposure for cadmium. This approach led to the identification of a cadmium concentration which should ensure that the seaweed-consuming population does not exceed the tolerable daily intake (TDI) of cadmium according to a probability of cases, when simultaneously exposed to other cadmium dietary sources. Considering the 5% of the population exceeding TDI, the estimated ML is equal to 0.35 mg Cd kg⁻¹dry matter of seaweed as an unprocessed food with a 95% confidence interval of [0.18,1.09]. The proposed approach is generic and could be applied to other relevant food/substance pairs when considering the setting of MLs in the regulatory system. It ensures better protection of consumer health.

Keywords:

• Maximum limit
• overexposure
• emerging consumption
• risk assessment
• cadmium
• seaweed
• France

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Expert Panels of ANSES on ‘Assessment of the physical and chemical risks in foods’ for the proofreading and validation of this work. We are grateful to Fernando AGUILAR from Risk assessment of Department of ANSES for its help of the proofreading of the work. We are grateful to the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control for their agreement for the use of results from French Annual Monitoring and Control Plan (2009–2017). We are grateful to the Centre for Study and Promotion of Algae CEVA for their help for the transmission of results of analysis of their studies in seaweed to ANSES.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).