Abstract
Higher demands of food production for human consumption increased uses of fertilizers and other chemicals that arise in a major public problem and heavy-metal pollution. Levels of Aluminum and Nickel which affect mankind health in exact doses, were determined in fresh and dried samples of ‘Jumbo Cot’, ‘Tom Cot’, ‘Gold Strike’, ‘Gold Bar’, Bergeron’, ‘Bergarouge’, ‘Sweet Cot’, ‘Yellow cot’ and ‘Zebra’ apricot cultivars to assess possible health risk of apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) consumption. Highest content of Al and Ni among all cultivars, where 9.71 and 2.14 mg/kg of dehydrated apricot samples. Fresh fruit samples maximally contain 2.9 and 0.425 mg/kg of Aluminum and Nickel respectively. Data analysis showed significant differences between cultivars for Al and Ni. Furthermore, to reveal the health-risk possibility of dried and fresh fruit consumption daily intake of elements and health-risk index were calculated and compared.
Highlights
The metal contents of food are gaining importance because of toxicological as well as their nutritional viewpoints
Heavy metals normally occurring in nature are not harmful, because they are only present in very small amounts
Examined elements were measured by Thermo Jarrell Ash Poly-scan 61E and Thermo Electron Corporation IRIS Intrepid II XDL Inductively coupled plasma emission spectrophotometers (ICP)
Summary
The metal contents of food are gaining importance because of toxicological as well as their nutritional viewpoints. Heavy metals normally occurring in nature are not harmful, because they are only present in very small amounts. Aluminum is a non-essential metal that would be toxic even in trace amounts (Gogoasa et al, 2005). Human exposure to heavy metals can occur through a variety of routes, such as inhalation of air pollutants or contaminated soil particles and consumption of contaminated foods (Bordajandi et al, 2004). Heavy metals contamination of orange fruits by Rossini et al (2003), plantain by Selema and Farago (1996), mango and almond by Ademoroti (1986), lemon, sweet orange and grapefruits by Gorinstein et al (2001), chiku, papaya, mango, muskmelon and apple by Parveen et al (2003), quince and grape by Pinochet et al (1999), strawberry by Ward and Savage (1994), banana, pineapple and papaya by Santos et al (2004) mango and almond fruits by Ademoroti ( 1986) and Li et al (2006), date palm by Williams et al (2005) and apricot by Saracoglu et al (2009) were studied
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