Abstract
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published a risk assessment of erucic acid (22:1n-9) in 2016, establishing a Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) for humans of 7 mg kg−1 body weight per day. This report largely excluded the contribution of erucic acid from fish and seafood, due to this fatty acid often not being reported separately in seafood. The Institute of Marine Research (IMR) in Norway analyzes erucic acid and has accumulated extensive data from analyses of fish feeds, farmed and wild fish, and seafood products. Our data show that rapeseed oil (low erucic acid varieties) and fish oil are the main sources of erucic acid in feed for farmed fish. Erucic acid content increases with total fat content, both in farmed and wild fish, and it is particularly high in fish liver, fish oil, and oily fish, such as mackerel. We show that the current TDI could be exceeded with a 200 g meal of mackerel, as at the maximum concentration analyzed, such a meal would contribute 143% to the TDI of a 60 kg person. These data cover a current knowledge gap in the scientific literature regarding the content of erucic acid in fish and seafood.
Highlights
The long-chain fatty acid erucic acid (22:1n-9) is a naturally occurring fatty acid, found in high concentrations in seeds of the family Brassicaceae, such as rapeseed and mustard seed
Erucic acid content increases with total fat content, both in farmed and wild fish, and it is high in fish liver, fish oil, and oily fish, such as mackerel
Data for this paper was compiled from analyses that were conducted in surveillance programs on fish feed, farmed fish, wild fish, and seafood products performed on behalf of the Norwegian Food
Summary
The long-chain fatty acid erucic acid (22:1n-9) is a naturally occurring fatty acid, found in high concentrations in seeds of the family Brassicaceae, such as rapeseed and mustard seed. Even though natural forms of rapeseed contain high levels of erucic acid (usually more than 40% of the total fatty acids), commercially bred rapeseed cultivars today ( known as canola) typically have levels below. The heart is the target organ for adverse effects of exposure to high concentrations of erucic acid, which may lead to lipidosis (accumulation of triacylglycerol as lipid droplets) in the heart muscle, reduced contractility, and eventually tissue damage [3]. This condition has never been documented in humans, but in both experimental and production animals, such as rats, pigs, and chicken [4]
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