Abstract
: Wine is an alcoholic drink, largely used to accompany food, with a key role in the protective effects on cardiovascular diseases. This study was developed to investigate radioisotopes and heavy metal content of twenty red, rose and white Italian wines, belonging to controlled origin denomination (DOC) geographic areas of the Calabria region, south of Italy. High Purity Germanium (HPGe) Gamma Spectrometry was employed to evaluate anthropogenic (137Cs) and natural (40K) radionuclides specific activity. Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) was used to assess any possible heavy metals contamination by a comparison between Cu, Zn, Pb, B, As and Cd concentrations with the limits set by the Italian Legislation. Calculated annual effective doses due to the ingestion of investigated samples are under allowable levels (1 mSv/year), thus excluding the risk of ionizing radiation effects on humans. Regarding to the metals concentration, experimental results show that they are lower than the contamination threshold values, thus excluding their presence as pollutants.
Highlights
Humans are subjected to radiations coming from natural and artificial sources in their living environments [1].Natural radioactivity is due to the presence of cosmogenic and primordial radionuclides in theEarth’s crust [2]
The specific activity of 40 K in the investigated wine samples is reported in the Table 3
These values are under allowable levels (1 mSv/year) [28] for all investigated samples and there is no risk of ionizing radiation effects on humans
Summary
Humans are subjected to radiations coming from natural and artificial sources in their living environments [1]. Inhalation of radionuclides and ingestion of radioisotopes through food and water are the three ways of exposure to ionizing radiations [6] For the latter, in particular, the natural radioactivity comes mainly from 40 K because nuclides of the uranium and thorium radioactive chains are usually present in traces [7,8]. In this article twenty (in total) red, rose and white Italian wines, belonging to controlled origin denomination (DOC) geographic areas of the Calabria region, south of Italy, were analyzed to identify and quantify: natural (40 K) and artificial (137 Cs) gamma-emitting radionuclides, with HPGe gamma spectrometry, to evaluate any possible radioisotopes contamination and to estimate the effective dose due to the wine ingestion; heavy metals (Cu, Zn, Pb, B, As, Cd), with Inductively Coupled Plasma. The investigated Calabrian wines have never been analyzed in terms of radioisotopes and heavy metals contamination: the health risks for the population have never been evaluated
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