Abstract
This mini review article described the exposure of aflatoxin in Malaysia, including its presence in the foodstuffs and the detection of aflatoxin biomarkers in human biological samples. Historically, the exposure of aflatoxin in Malaysia can be dated in 1960s where an outbreak of disease in pig farms caused severe liver damage to the animals. Later, an aflatoxicosis case in Perak in 1988 was reported and caused death to 13 children, as up to 3 mg of aflatoxin was present in a single serving of contaminated noodles. Since then, extensive research on aflatoxin has been conducted in Malaysia. The food commodities such as peanuts, cereals, spices, and their products are the main commodities commonly found to be contaminated with aflatoxin. Surprisingly, some of the contaminated foods had levels greater than the permissible limit adopted by the Malaysian Food Regulation 1985. Besides, exposure assessment through the measurement of aflatoxin biomarkers in human biological samples is still in its infancy stage. Nevertheless, some studies had reported the presence of these biomarkers. In fact, it is postulated that Malaysians are moderately exposed to aflatoxin compared to those high risk populations, where aflatoxin contamination in the diets is prevalent. Since the ingestion of aflatoxin could be the integral to the development of liver cancer, the incidence of cancer attributable by dietary aflatoxin exposure in Malaysia has also been reported and published in the literatures. Regardless of these findings, the more important task is to monitor and control humans from being exposed to aflatoxin. The enforcement of law is insufficient to minimize human exposure to aflatoxin. Preventive strategies include agricultural, dietary, and clinical measures should be implemented. With the current research on aflatoxin in Malaysia, a global networking for research collaboration is needed to expand the knowledge and disseminate the information to the global scientific community.
Highlights
There are many toxic compounds produced by fungi and one of them is mycotoxin
Further investigations at that time revealed the toxicity was associated with Aspergillus flavus, a pathogenic fungus and extracts from the culture of the fungus isolated from the meal were found to have the capability to induce the “Turkey X” syndromes (Kensler et al, 2011)
Since AFM1 is a metabolite of AFB1, such findings indicated by Mohd Redzwan et al (2012b) and Sabran et al (2012) are useful to estimate human exposure to aflatoxin as a study has found good correlation between dietary intake of AFB1 and urinary excretion of metabolite AFM1 (Zhu et al, 1987)
Summary
There are many toxic compounds produced by fungi and one of them is mycotoxin. The occurrence of mycotoxin in the food commodities can be dated as early as in the tenth century. Later the isolation of purified aflatoxin metabolites with identical physical and chemical properties formed the core to the scientific research on aflatoxin (Kensler et al, 2011) These findings have stimulated numerous research efforts, which transcend to the present, to assess possible hazards of aflatoxin contamination in the human food sources and to reduce the exposure through various preventive strategies. Commodities stored under these conditions are deteriorated and susceptible to fungal infections (Abdullah et al, 1998; Sulaiman et al, 2007) With these conditions, the most prominent contamination is the infection of foods by mycotoxin-producing fungi. Cereals, spices, and their products are the commodities most susceptible to aflatoxin contamination These food commodities are generally used in many Malaysian delicacies either as a main ingredient or as a base material (Reddy et al, 2011). The similar observations were reported by several studies in African countries (Jolly et al, 2006, 2009; Ilesanmi and Ilesanmi, 2011)
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