Chapter 3 - Toxicity of Food Additives

Abstract

Different types of additives are added to food products to achieve desired characteristics like taste, preservation, and sweetening. The International Conferences on Harmonization, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, European Food Safety Authority, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issue guidelines for the rules and regulation of safe use and also publish lists of approved food additives. The food additives are specially screened for cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, mutagenicity, and hepatotoxicity by various methods. The food additive safety studies are carried out by cytogenetic evaluation in which gene mutation assay, long-term carcinogenicity tests, reproductive and developmental toxicology tests, hyperactivity, anxiety, and depression activity tests are performed. The limitations of these studies are inappropriate in vivo follow-up assay and specificity of subjects. Furthermore, the main challenge is that there are no uniform guidelines on the status of these agents across the various regions or worldwide.