Abstract
The current study aims to investigate the levels of the toxic metal in agricultural products (legumes, wheat, and potato) collected in Markazi province, Iran, and human health risk by using inductively coupled plasma - optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The levels of arsenic (As) and cadmium (Cd) in all samples were lower than the limit of detection (LOD), while the level of Cd in potato samples was lower than the maximum permisible level (MPL) of the European commission (EC). The non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk assessment by direct ingestion of agricultural products was calculated using the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) method. The highest mean of toxic metals was observed for lead (Pb) in legume samples (562.17 μg kg− 1). Mercury (Hg) and Pb levels in all samples were higher than LOD, while Pb level in wheat samples were lower than of EC. The rank order of Hg and Pb levels in all samples based on target hazard quotient (THQ) value was wheat> potato>legume. The THQ index of Hg and Pb by the deterministic method in wheat was 1.37 and 0.454; in potato 0.139 and 0.104; in legume 0.092 and 0.41, respectively. The carcinogenic risk index was at an acceptable range. The high hazard index values were estimated and the THQ index for Hg in wheat suggests a non-negligible health risk.
Highlights
Agricultural products are an important part of the human daily diet that can be contaminated with toxic metals such as Hg, Cd, Pb, and As, agricultural products are considered a serious concern for human health (Stefanović et al 2008; Dodangeh et al 2018)
All the toxic metals revealed linear relationships of the instrumental response and the solutions containing the metals with insignificant intercepts and correlation coefficients for all samples ranged from 0.9891 to 0.9922.Perceived limit of detection (LOD) and LOQ are ranged 0. 05–2 and 0.16–6.60 μg/kg, respectively
The mean concentration reported for Cd in wheat and legume samples were lower than LOD, while in potato samples it was 27.46 μg kg− 1, which were lower than the maximum permisible level (MPL) proposed by European commission (EC) (30 μg kg− 1)
Summary
Agricultural products are an important part of the human daily diet that can be contaminated with toxic metals such as Hg, Cd, Pb, and As, agricultural products are considered a serious concern for human health (Stefanović et al 2008; Dodangeh et al 2018). The contamination of agricultural products with toxic metals can be related to either environmental resources or human activities such as industrial processing, mining, waste disposal, application of wastewater, sewage sludge to irrigation of cultivated agricultural products, Toxic metals as the non-essential compounds for the human body could cause several adverse health effects, even in trace amounts (Yılmaz et al 2010). Due to their non-degradable nature, they could biologically. Industrialization influences the toxic metals concentration in soil, water, and air leads to an increase in the concentration of these elements in agricultural products. Lei et al (2015) mentioned that human activities, like mineral exploration, refining, and manipulation, as well as sewage sludge, are the most important sources of toxic metals pollution (Lei et al 2015)
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