Health risk assessment of persistent organic pollutants through consumption of chicken meat

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Date
2009
Authors
Abdul Latiff, Zurinah
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Abstract
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are widely dispersed throughout the environment including food. Due to their accumulative properties and well documented endocrine disruptive toxicities, there are concerns on health effects on human through dietary intake. Foods such as fish and chicken have been found to contain significant levels of POP chemicals. Four groups of POPs consisting of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs) and phthalate esters were analyzed in chicken meat. The concentration levels were determined and then used to asess the health risk which would arise through daily consumption of chicken collected from ten sampling locations in Perlis. The estimated daily dietary intakes in this study were generally lower than the acceptable daily intake (ADI) recommended by World Health Organization (WHO) and other health governing organizations, suggesting that chickens are safe to Malaysians through daily intake. The analytical methods for analyses of these contaminants in chicken involved soxhlet extraction, sample clean-up using florisil column chromatography and quantitation using GC-ECD for PCB and OCP compounds while GC-FID for OPP and phthalate esters. Various parameters were optimized and the analytical procedure was validated using spiked standard solutions of target analytes. The highest TEQ value was PCB 126 (3.86) and PCB 169 (1.37) pg/g ww. PCB 77, PCB 126 and PCB 169 were found to be the major contributor for the high TEQ value of PCB contamination in the chicken samples. Concentration of OCPs in chicken were found to be lower in the range of 0.5-2.3 μg/kg ww compared to reported concentration of OCPs in fish from several studies in Malaysia. Among the important OCPs, DDT were found in the range of 0.49- 3.14 μg/kg ; chlordane in the range 0.22-2.12 μg/kg; HCH including lindane in the range 0.99-4.19 μg/kg and endosulfan in the range 0.92-3.12 μg/kg. For the OPP compounds, dichlorvos was dominant in all the chicken samples. Dibutyl phthalate, butylbenzyl phthalate, diisooctyl phthalate and diethylhexyl phthalate were the dominant phthalate esters in the chicken samples. Concentrations of PCB compounds in chicken were comparable to results on fish. The calculated daily intakes of PCB through consumptions of chicken meat were generally lower than the upper limit of the ADI (4 pg TEQ/kg bw/day). The estimated daily intakes for each of the OCPs in chicken were much lower than the acceptable daily intake (ADI). For OPPs, the estimated daily intake for dichlorvos was slightly higher than the acceptable daily intake at three locations. The estimated daily intakes for DEHP, BBP, DOP and DEP in all the chicken samples were much lower than the minimum risk level (MRL).
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Master
Keywords
Chemical science , Health risk , Organic pollutants , Chicken meat
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