Abstract
Exposure to heavy metal pollutants through air, soil, water and food is a growing concern due to its toxicity in living organisms. In this study, concentration of toxic metals like cadmium (Cd), nickel (Ni), arsenic (As), lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), and aluminium (Al) were analysed in silver leaf coated sugar confectionaries to evaluate their risk in humans. The elemental contamination can be due to various factors like industrialization, mining and over exploitation of natural resources, however this study focuses on adulteration of these toxic metals in food with emphasis on aluminium contamination in silver leaf along with other toxic metals. The identification of metals was accomplished by a validated technique employing inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The method was evaluated in terms of limit of detection (LOD), limit of quantification (LOQ), repeatability, recovery, accuracy, within-lab reproducibility, linearity and measurement of uncertainty. The concentrations of toxic metals were below the maximum residual limits for Pb, Hg, Cd, and As. To assess the toxicity of these metals, the Hazard Quotients were measured. The target hazard quotient (THQ) values for silver leaf-coated sugar confectionaries ranged from 9 to 10985 for aluminium in approximately 30% of samples, and were less than 0.01 for other metals. The highest levels of THQ were observed in aluminium > 1, suggesting a high health risk to humans. The correlation of samples with and without aluminium foil was investigated by a statistical evaluation of data employing the Karl Pearson’s coefficient of correlation. In most cases, the food was found to be adulterated with aluminium and traces of nickel, whereas other toxic metals were detected well below the maximum detection limits (MRL).
Citation
Das L, Dhakad G, Basu P, Kundu A, Chezhiyan K, et al.(2024) Determination of Toxic Elements in Silver Leaf Coated Sugar Confectionaries By inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry and their Health Risk Assessment.. SM J Environ Toxicol 7: 10.