Exploring the carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risk of chemicals present in vegetable oils

Abstract

ABSTRACT As humans are always exposed to chemical mixtures, in the present work, we tried to assess the risk of oral exposure to a mixture of pesticide, heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) residues in 375 vegetable oil samples analysed by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) and Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES), for humans. Probabilistic risk assessment showed Target Hazard Quotient (THQ) <1 for all pesticide residues, and calculated total Hazard Index (HI) values reflected no major risk. The 50th and 95th Incremental Life Time Cancer Risk (ILCRs) for carcinogenic heavy metals (HMs) (As and Pb) only showed potential risk for As; while for non-carcinogenic HMs, HI values were <1 in both related percentiles reflecting no appreciable risk. In addition, at 50th and 95th percentiles, ILCR values of PAHs indicated no potential risk except for Benzo (a) pyrene (BaP). Estimated Margins of exposure (MOEs) at 95th percentiles, Chrysene (Chr) and BaP showed the most and least MOE values, respectively. In sensitivity analyses, concentration of analytes had the greatest effect on carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risk assessment.