Abstract
Ochratoxin A is a nephrotoxic and renal carcinogenic mycotoxin and is a common contaminant of various food commodities. Eighty six kinds of foodstuffs (1032 food samples) were collected in 2011–2013. High-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection was used for ochratoxin A determination. Limit of quantification of the method varied between 0.01–0.2 μg/kg depending on the food matrices. The most exposed population is children aged 4–6 years old. Globally for this group, the maximum ochratoxin A dietary exposure for “average consumer” was estimated at 3.3 ng/kg bw/day (lower bound, considering the analytical values below the limit of quantification as 0) and 3.9 ng/kg bw/day (middle bound, considering the analytical values below the limit of quantification as 1/2 limit of quantification). Important sources of exposure for this latter group include grain-based products, confectionery, meat products and fruit juice. The dietary intake for “high consumers” in the group 4–6 years old was estimated from grains and grain-based products at 19.8 ng/kg bw/day (middle bound), from tea at 12.0 ng/kg bw/day (middle bound) and from confectionery at 6.5 ng/kg bw/day (middle bound). For men aged 18–59 years old beer was the main contributor with an intake of 2.60 ng/kg bw/day (“high consumers”, middle bound). Tea and grain-based products were identified to be the main contributors for dietary exposure in women aged 18–59 years old. Coffee and wine were identified as a higher contributor of the OTA intake in the population group of women aged 18–59 years old compared to the other population groups.
Highlights
Ochratoxin A (OTA) is a nephrotoxic and renal carcinogenic mycotoxin [1,2,3]
The current paper aims to present the data on the dietary exposure assessment of OTA with respect to 10 sex-age groups in the Czech Republic (CR) as investigated in the research project
A difficult step in the dietary exposure assessment is how to handle data on concentrations reported below the limit of quantification (LOQ) but over the limit of detection (LOD)
Summary
OTA is produced by Aspergillus and Penicillium species [4,5,6,7] and is a common contaminant of various foodstuffs of plant and animal origin including cereals, spices, coffee, cacao, beer, wine, raisins, pulses, meat, meat products, or edible offal [7]. Considering such ubiquity and the mentioned toxic effects, international authorities have proposed tolerable daily or weekly intakes for OTA, which indicate the dose that can be safely consumed daily/weekly over a lifetime without incurring any appreciable adverse health effects. TWI was established on the basis of the lowest observed adverse effect level (LOAEL) of 8 μg/kg bw/day for early markers of renal toxicity in pigs (the most sensitive animal species), and applying a composite uncertainty factor of 450 for the uncertainties in the extrapolation of experimental data derived from animals to humans as well as for intra-species variability [8].
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