Journal
TOXINS
Volume 13, Issue 9, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/toxins13090627
Keywords
saxitoxin; feeding study; toxicology; paralytic shellfish toxins
Categories
Funding
- New Zealand Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment-Seafood Safety research programme [CAWX1801]
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The study showed that intake of a certain shellfish toxin in mice did not have significant effects on multiple indicators, and the calculated safe dose for humans was much higher than the proposed value by the European Food Safety Authority. Therefore, the current regulatory limit for shellfish toxins seems appropriate.
Regulatory limits for shellfish toxins are required to protect human health. Often these limits are set using only acute toxicity data, which is significant, as in some communities, shellfish makes up a large proportion of their daily diet and can be contaminated with paralytic shellfish toxins (PSTs) for several months. In the current study, feeding protocols were developed to mimic human feeding behaviour and diets containing three dose rates of saxitoxin dihydrochloride (STX.2HCl) were fed to mice for 21 days. This yielded STX.2HCl dose rates of up to 730 mu g/kg bw/day with no effects on food consumption, growth, blood pressure, heart rate, motor coordination, grip strength, blood chemistry, haematology, organ weights or tissue histology. Using the 100-fold safety factor to extrapolate from animals to humans yields a dose rate of 7.3 mu g/kg bw/day, which is well above the current acute reference dose (ARfD) of 0.5 mu g STX.2HCl eq/kg bw proposed by the European Food Safety Authority. Furthermore, to reach the dose rate of 7.3 mu g/kg bw, a 60 or 70 kg human would have to consume 540 or 630 g of shellfish contaminated with PSTs at the current regulatory limit (800 mu g/kg shellfish flesh), respectively. The current regulatory limit for PSTs therefore seems appropriate.
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