Composition and human health risk analysis of elements in muscle tissues of wild and farmed fish species from Northeast Mediterranean

Abstract

It was aimed to determine the concentrations of several heavy metals in muscle tissues of 18 wild and 2 farmed fish species obtained from 6 stations and 3 different fish farms, which were located between Hatay and Antalya provinces in the Northeast Mediterranean. The metal analysis of tissue samples was conducted using the Inductively-coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) method. Given all the tissue samples, the mean metal concentrations were found to be as follows; Li: < 0.001–0.15 mg kg−1 ww, Al: < 0.0006–2.54 mg kg−1 ww, Cr: < 0.001–0.49 mg kg−1 ww, Mn: < 0.0002–1.05 mg kg−1 ww, Fe: < 0.001–0.02 mg kg−1 ww, Cu: < 0.006 – 1.30 mg kg−1 ww, Zn: 1.76–15.4 mg kg−1 ww, As: 0.52–35.1 mg kg−1 ww, Sn: < 0.0004–2.04 mg kg−1 ww. Co, Ni, Cd, and Pb were found to be lower than the detectable limits in all tissue samples. For human consumption estimated weekly intakes (EWI), target hazard quotients (THQ), and cancer risk (CR) levels of the metals were determined in muscle tissues of the wild and farmed fish species. The mean EWI, THQ, and CR levels for As were found 34.82, 3.97E+ 00 ± 4.84E+ 00 and 1.06–03 ± 1.30E-03 for wild species while these values for farmed species were as follows; 2.46, 2.80E-01 ± 1.18E-01 and 7.49E-05 ± 3.15E-05 respectively. When compared to the wild species, metal levels were significantly lower in farmed fishes and consuming these fishes was determined not to cause any health problems. For the wild samples, however, inorganic As concentrations were found to be risky from carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic aspects. Moreover, the mean metal concentrations in muscle tissues of fishes obtained from the Northeast Mediterranean were compared to the national/international codex limits and it was found that all the metal concentrations in tissue samples were lower than the upper limits set by Turkish Food Codex (TFC), European Union (EU), and World Health Organization (WHO).