Intake of toxic metals through dietary eggs consumption and its potential health risk assessment on the peoples of the capital city Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract

Around the world, hen meat and eggs are very widely consumed in dishes like curries, processed cuisine, and fast food. The ingestion of contaminated eggs poses a biochemical risk from the perspective of food safety due to the presence of heavy metal and trace element residues in hen eggs. The purpose of this study was to examine the concentrations of heavy metals in eggs from commercial chicken farms from capital city and hens from local area in order to identify the most significant heavy metal concentration in hen eggs. The concentrations of Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, Mn, Ni, Fe, Zn, Co and As in samples of hen eggs collected from different locations were measured in the present study and concentrations of these selective metals were found to be between < 0.001, 0.01–0.89, 0.81–0.015, 0.81–58.8, 0.32–1.9, 0.05–1.03, 0.04–0.38, 10.6–104.02, 2.41–48.46, 0.04–0.5 mg/kg-fw and BDL respectively. The findings showed that Cu, Pb, Fe and Zn had levels over the dietary food's maximum permissible limit (MPL). Multivariate statistical studies showed that human activity was the main contributor to the presence of heavy metals in the sampled diets. Estimated daily intake (EDI), target hazard quotient (THQ) of individual heavy metals, and carcinogenic risk (CR) for lifetime exposure were used to evaluate the risks to human health associated with dietary intake of these metals through consumption of hen eggs. Provisional tolerable daily intake values (PTDI) for Pb, Cu, Zn, and Fe were higher, indicating that these metals might be harmful to human health if consumed in eggs by both children and adults. The evaluated foodstuffs can be consumed with low or less risk of exposure to heavy metals because the computed values of THQ and CR were below their respective allowed thresholds.