Abstract
The present study was conducted with an aim to compare heavy metals (Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb) accumulation potential of some of the commonly grown vegetables like brinjal, cauliflower, spinach and coriander collected from different agricultural (production) and market sites of Katihar city. The accumulation of Cd, Pb, Cu and Zn in test vegetables was higher in market sites then those at all agricultural lands and elevated by 47.84, 64.84, 21.3, and 9.91% in brinjal, 36.19, 78.09, 21.83, and 6.50% in cauliflower, 34.52, 49.50, 9.1, and 9.97% in spinach and 27.86, 47.05, 10.34, and 6.13% in coriander, respectively and was observed maximum in brinjal (143.89%) followed by cauliflower (142.61%), spinach (103.09%), and coriander (91.38%). The population load index (PLI), transfer factor (TF), daily intake of metals (DIM) and health risk index (HRI) were also studied. The maximum value of PLI was found for Zn (35.06%) and minimum for Pb (0.178%) in soil collected from production sites. The TF of heavy metals in vegetable collected from market sites was found to be higher than vegetable collected from production sites and could be one of the possible reasons for health risk in human via their consumption. The average daily intake of Cd, Pb, Cu and Zn, by adults in vegetables collected from market sites were 5.38, 1.20, 4.606 and 0.336% of provisional tolerable daily intake. The HRI value of all individual vegetables was below 1.0. Therefore, it is suggested that regular monitoring of heavy metals in vegetables is essential to prevent excessive build-up of heavy metals in the food chain and appropriate precautions should also be taken at the time of transportation and marketing of vegetables.
Highlights
Vegetables are important part of human diet throughout the world, as they are rich sources of essential important nutrients, such as carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, minerals, trace elements as well as antioxidants and metabolites, [1, 2]
The value of Health Risk Index (HRI) depends upon the daily intake of metals (DIM) and reference oral dose (RfD), which was computed as described by Jan et al (2010) [26]
The results revealed that daily intakes of Cd, Pb, Cu and Zn, by adults in vegetables collected from agricultural fields and market sites were found to be
Summary
Vegetables are important part of human diet throughout the world, as they are rich sources of essential important nutrients, such as carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, minerals, trace elements as well as antioxidants and metabolites, [1, 2]. Atmospheric deposition can significantly elevate the levels of heavy metals in vegetables sold in the market were reported by Sharma et al (2008a, b) [9, 10] Some metals such as Mn, Cu, Zn, Co, Mo and Fe are essential for human life in appropriate concentration as they catalyse enzymatic activities in human body, but in excess they become poisonous [11]. They get magnified with rising tropic level and get accumulated in human beings where they cause chronic and acute ailments and even death [12] Some of these heavy metals form complexes with carboxylic (-COOH), amino (-NH2), imino (>NH) and thiol (-SH) groups present in the proteins and they disturb the activity of the proteins to catalyse the function of enzymes [13]. The aim of the research work was to monitor and assess the concentration of heavy metals (Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb) in some selected vegetables collected from different agricultural (production) fields and market sites of Katihar city, Bihar, India and to estimate health hazard through their consumption
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