Concentration of ochratoxin A in coffee products and probabilistic health risk assessment

Coffee is a beverage that people enjoy a lot in their daily lives and is an integral part of people's social life. In this study, the detection of ochratoxin A (OTA) in coffee was carried out by High-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence (HPLC-FLD) detectors. Furthermore, the amount of ochratoxin A (OTA), Margin of exposure (MOEs), and Hazard quotient (HQ) in different types of coffees; instant, classic, and roasted coffee were calculated using Monte Carlo sim-ulation (MCS) method. The average OTA concentration was in the rage of 3.6 to 26.6 mg/kg. The content of classic and instant coffee found to have.OTA, is below the maximum limit defined by the European Union legislation. The maximum limit for these two types of coffee is 10 mg/kg. The daily intakes of the OTA through classic and instant coffee were also found to be lower than the Tolerance daily intake proposed by Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA). MOEs (neoplastic effect) in adults was classic coffee (171026) > roasted coffee (15390) > instant coffee (8549) and also MOEs (non-neoplastic effects) in children was classic coffee (55790) > roasted coffee (5020) > instant cof-fee (2789). Consumers of instant coffee are at cancer risk based on neoplastic effects and also con -sumers of instant coffee and roasted coffee are at cancer risk based on non-neoplastic effects (MOEs lower than 10,000 value). HQ (nephrotoxic effect) in adults was instant coffee (0.132) > roasted coffee (0.097) > classic coffee (0.012). HQ due to consumption of coffee products was lower than 1, hence consumers are at safe non-cancer risk. Therefore, it is recommended reducing the concen-tration of mycotoxins in coffee products.(c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study detected ochratoxin A (OTA) in coffee using high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detectors and calculated the OTA content, Margin of exposure (MOEs), and Hazard quotient (HQ) in different types of coffee. The results showed that the OTA concentration in classic and instant coffee was below the maximum limit defined by the European Union legislation. The daily intakes of OTA through classic and instant coffee were also lower than the proposed tolerance daily intake. However, consumers of instant coffee are at a cancer risk based on neoplastic effects.