Dietary exposure of the Korean population to arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury

Due to increasing concern about the intake of contaminants in foods, this study was performed to monitor the exposure of the Korean population to heavy metal contaminants (arsenic, cadmium, mercury and lead) from typical diets, and to estimate the health risk. A food list representing typical dietary practices of Koreans was developed, based on the results of the 1998 National Health and Nutrition Survey and the 1999 Seasonal Nutrition Survey, which included a nationwide sample of 4000 and 3000 households, respectively, including everyone 1 year and older. Foods were prepared for consumption (table-ready) according to representative recipes and typical cooking methods, and were chemically analysed to measure the levels of heavy metals by inductively coupled plasma-emission spectrometry (arsenic, cadmium and lead) and gold amalgamation (mercury). Then, the dietary intake of each heavy metal was estimated based on the mean food intake of the population, and the associated risk was evaluated by comparing intakes with the provisional tolerable weekly intakes (PTWIs). Although seaweeds and fishes were highest in heavy metal content, the contribution of foods to total heavy metal intake was more influenced by the amount of food consumed, so that cooked rice was the most important contributor to mercury intake, and vegetables the most important contributor of lead. Nevertheless, the estimated dietary intakes of arsenic (38.5 mu g/ person/day), cadmium (14.3 mu g/person/day), lead (24.4 mu g/person/day) and mercury (1.61 mu g/person/day) from the 116 foods tested were well within the safe limits (under 30% of PTWIs). It appears that there is no imminent health risk due to heavy metals examined in this study for the total diet of the Korean population. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.