Cancer and non-cancer health effects from food contaminant exposures for children and adults in California: a risk assessment

Environmental Health

Research

Joshua Frost¹  Irva Hertz-Picciotto¹  Rainbow Vogt¹  Diana Cassady¹  Deborah Bennett¹  Beate Ritz² 

[1] UC Davis, Department of Public Health Sciences, 1 Shields Avenue, 95616, Davis, CA, USA;UC Los Angeles, Department of Epidemiology, 100 Stein Plaza Driveway, 90095, Los Angeles, CA, USA;

关键词: Dietary toxic exposure prevention;    Nutritional toxicology;    Organic food;    Cancer risk;    Chemical contaminants in food;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-069X-11-83

 received in 2011-10-19, accepted in 2012-10-18,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn the absence of current cumulative dietary exposure assessments, this analysis was conducted to estimate exposure to multiple dietary contaminants for children, who are more vulnerable to toxic exposure than adults.MethodsWe estimated exposure to multiple food contaminants based on dietary data from preschool-age children (2–4 years, n=207), school-age children (5–7 years, n=157), parents of young children (n=446), and older adults (n=149). We compared exposure estimates for eleven toxic compounds (acrylamide, arsenic, lead, mercury, chlorpyrifos, permethrin, endosulfan, dieldrin, chlordane, DDE, and dioxin) based on self-reported food frequency data by age group. To determine if cancer and non-cancer benchmark levels were exceeded, chemical levels in food were derived from publicly available databases including the Total Diet Study.ResultsCancer benchmark levels were exceeded by all children (100%) for arsenic, dieldrin, DDE, and dioxins. Non-cancer benchmarks were exceeded by >95% of preschool-age children for acrylamide and by 10% of preschool-age children for mercury. Preschool-age children had significantly higher estimated intakes of 6 of 11 compounds compared to school-age children (p<0.0001 to p=0.02). Based on self-reported dietary data, the greatest exposure to pesticides from foods included in this analysis were tomatoes, peaches, apples, peppers, grapes, lettuce, broccoli, strawberries, spinach, dairy, pears, green beans, and celery.ConclusionsDietary strategies to reduce exposure to toxic compounds for which cancer and non-cancer benchmarks are exceeded by children vary by compound. These strategies include consuming organically produced dairy and selected fruits and vegetables to reduce pesticide intake, consuming less animal foods (meat, dairy, and fish) to reduce intake of persistent organic pollutants and metals, and consuming lower quantities of chips, cereal, crackers, and other processed carbohydrate foods to reduce acrylamide intake.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Vogt et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.