scholarly journals Dietary Exposure to Additives and Sorbed Contaminants from Ingested Microplastic Particles Through the Consumption of Fisheries and Aquaculture Products

2021 ◽  
pp. 261-310
Author(s):  
Esther Garrido Gamarro ◽  
Violetta Costanzo
Keyword(s):  
Gastrointestinal Tract ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Exposure Assessment ◽  
Dietary Exposure ◽  
Risk Assessments ◽  
Aquatic Animals ◽  
Aquaculture Products

AbstractMicroplastics and nanoplastics may be found in the gastrointestinal tract of some aquatic animals and could potentially be ingested by humans if consumed whole. Information on the toxicity of plastic particles, as well as co-contaminants such as plastic additives, remains scarce. This represents a serious challenge to perform realistic risk assessments. An exposure assessment of selected plastic additives and co-contaminants of known toxicity associated with microplastics was carried out for shellfish in this study, which builds on an exposure assessment of microplastic additives and a limited number of associated contaminants in mussels conducted by the FAO in 2017. This study evaluates possible impacts to food safety by examining a diverse additives and associated sorbed contaminants. The results suggest that the levels of certain microplastic additives and sorbed co-contaminants in target animals (shrimp, prawns, clams, oysters, and mussels) do not pose a food safety threat to consumers. To get to further conclusions, an exposure assessment from the whole diet should be carried out and the toxicity of some of the most common polymers and plastic additives, as well as their mixtures, needs to be carefully evaluated.

Overview of the activities of the European Food Safety Authority on mycotoxins in food and feed

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Eskola ◽  
A. Altieri ◽  
J. Galobart
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
Animal Health ◽  
Companion Animals ◽  
Dietary Exposure ◽  
Feed Additives ◽  
European Food Safety Authority ◽  
Risk Assessments ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Adverse Health Effects ◽  
Research Organisations

Mycotoxins are widely occurring in foods and feeds and dietary exposure to them can induce various types of adverse health effects in humans and animals. Since its establishment in 2002, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has assessed risks of dietary exposure to mycotoxins for public health and for the health of farm and companion animals on the request of the European Commission and has assessed safety and efficacy of feed additives for the reduction of contamination of feed by mycotoxins within the European Union authorisation process for feed additives. Over 40 scientific opinions on risks of mycotoxins for human and animal health and other reports on mycotoxins have been issued by the authority for the use of the European risk managers. Mycotoxins belong to one of the important areas of the EFSA work. Occurrence data on mycotoxins submitted to EFSA by the European national food safety bodies and research institutions have been collected in the EFSA databases and have informed its scientific opinions and reports on mycotoxins. Similarly, many EFSA-funded projects conducted by the European research organisations, not only to generate data on occurrence, but also data on toxicity of mycotoxins, have provided valuable information for the risk assessments of EFSA. Aflatoxin and deoxynivalenol are the mycotoxins, for which EFSA has delivered most of its scientific mycotoxin opinions. Very recently also modified forms of mycotoxins have been included in the EFSA risk assessments. In this review paper an overview of many different EFSA activities on mycotoxins is given. It also includes a brief description how EFSA develops its scientific opinions and works.

Dietary exposure assessment of sweeteners within their re-evaluation by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)

2021 ◽  
Vol 350 ◽  
pp. S79-S80
Author(s):  
A. Tard ◽  
D. Arcella ◽  
P. Boon ◽  
C. Cascio ◽  
L. Castle ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
Exposure Assessment ◽  
Dietary Exposure ◽  
European Food Safety Authority

scholarly journals Introduction to the Special Issue: New Frontiers in Acrylamide Study in Foods—Formation, Analysis and Exposure Assessment

Foods ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1506
Author(s):  
Cristina Delgado-Andrade ◽  
Marta Mesías ◽  
Francisco J. Morales
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
Exposure Assessment ◽  
Thermal Processing ◽  
Dietary Exposure ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Commission Regulation ◽  
Chemical Contaminant ◽  
Harmful Effects

Acrylamide is a chemical contaminant that naturally originates during the thermal processing of many foods. Since 2002, worldwide institutions with competencies in food safety have promoted activities aimed at updating knowledge for a revaluation of the risk assessment of this process contaminant. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) ruled in 2015 that the presence of acrylamide in foods increases the risk of developing cancer in any age group of the population. Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/2158 establishes recommended mitigation measures for the food industry and reference levels to reduce the presence of acrylamide in foods and, consequently, its harmful effects on the population. This Special Issue explores recent advances on acrylamide in foods, including a novel insight on its chemistry of formation and elimination, effective mitigation strategies, conventional and innovative monitoring techniques, risk/benefit approaches and exposure assessment, in order to enhance our understanding for this process contaminant and its dietary exposure.

FAO/WHO GIFT: increasing the availability, harmonization and use of individual quantitative food consumption data worldwide

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
R Ferreira de Sousa ◽  
A Balcerzak ◽  
T Bevere ◽  
V Padula de Quadros
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
Food Consumption ◽  
Eating Habits ◽  
Geographical Area ◽  
Dietary Exposure ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Food Groups ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Consumption Data ◽  
Food Consumption Data

Abstract Introduction Understanding the various eating habits of different population groups, according to the geographical area, is critical to develop evidence-based policies for nutrition and food safety. The FAO/WHO Global Individual Food consumption data Tool (FAO/WHO GIFT) is a novel open-access online platform, hosted by FAO and supported by WHO, providing access to harmonized individual quantitative food consumption (IQFC) data, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Methods FAO/WHO GIFT disseminates IQFC data as ready-to-use food-based indicators in the form of infographics, and as microdata. The infographics intend to facilitate the use of these data by policy makers, providing an overview of key data according to population segments and food groups. The microdata is publicly available for download, and is intended for users that would like to do further analysis of the data. Results FAO/WHO GIFT is a growing repository. By June 2020, 14 datasets were available for dissemination and download, and an additional 44 datasets will be made available by 2022. FAO/WHO GIFT also provides an inventory of existing IQFC data worldwide, which currently contains detailed information on 268 surveys conducted in 105 countries. Conclusions FAO/WHO GIFT collates, harmonizes and disseminates IQFC data collected in different countries. This harmonization is aimed at enhancing the consistency and reliability of nutrient intake and dietary exposure assessments globally. FAO/WHO GIFT is developed in synergy with other global initiatives aimed at increasing the quality, availability and use of IQFC data in LMICs to enable evidence-based policy-making for better nutrition and food safety.

Dietary exposure assessment of β-glucan in a barley and oat based bread

LWT ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 413-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
U. Tiwari ◽  
E. Cummins
Keyword(s):  
Exposure Assessment ◽  
Dietary Exposure

scholarly journals Enlisting Supervised Machine Learning in Mapping Scientific Uncertainty Expressed in Food Risk Analysis

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 608-641 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akos Rona-Tas ◽  
Antoine Cornuéjols ◽  
Sandrine Blanchemanche ◽  
Antonin Duroy ◽  
Christine Martin
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Supervised Machine Learning ◽  
Risk Assessments ◽  
Scientific Uncertainty ◽  
Empirical Measure ◽  
Taxonomic Structure ◽  
Safety Risk ◽  
Food Safety Risk

Recently, both sociology of science and policy research have shown increased interest in scientific uncertainty. To contribute to these debates and create an empirical measure of scientific uncertainty, we inductively devised two systems of classification or ontologies to describe scientific uncertainty in a large corpus of food safety risk assessments with the help of machine learning (ML). We ask three questions: (1) Can we use ML to assist with coding complex documents such as food safety risk assessments on a difficult topic like scientific uncertainty? (2) Can we assess using ML the quality of the ontologies we devised? (3) And, finally, does the quality of our ontologies depend on social factors? We found that ML can do surprisingly well in its simplest form identifying complex meanings, and it does not benefit from adding certain types of complexity to the analysis. Our ML experiments show that in one ontology which is a simple typology, against expectations, semantic opposites attract each other and support the taxonomic structure of the other. And finally, we found some evidence that institutional factors do influence how well our taxonomy of uncertainty performs, but its ability to capture meaning does not vary greatly across the time, institutional context, and cultures we investigated.

scholarly journals Risk Assessment of "Other Substances" – L-threonine

2020 ◽  
pp. 63-65
Author(s):  
Martinus Løvik ◽  
Livar Frøyland ◽  
Margaretha Haugen ◽  
Sigrun Henjum ◽  
Kristin Holvik ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Adverse Effects ◽  
Health Effects ◽  
Food Supplements ◽  
Risk Assessments ◽  
Adverse Health Effects ◽  
Adverse Health ◽  
Other Substances ◽  
One Year

The Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety (Vitenskapskomiteen for mattrygghet, VKM) has, at the request of the Norwegian Food Safety Authority (Mattilsynet; NFSA), assessed the risk of "other substances" in food supplements and energy drinks sold in Norway. VKM has assessed the risk of doses given by NFSA. These risk assessments will provide NFSA with the scientific basis while regulating "other substances" in food supplements. "Other substances" are described in the food supplement directive 2002/46/EC as substances other than vitamins or minerals that have a nutritional and/ or physiological e ffect. It is added mainly to food supplements, but also to energy drinks and other foods. In this series of risk assessments of "other substances" the VKM has not evaluated any claimed beneficial effects from these substances, only possible adverse effects. The present report is a risk assessment of specified doses of L-threonine in food supplements, and it is based on previous risk assessments and articles retrieved from literature searches. According to information from NFSA, L-threonine is an ingredient in food supplements sold in Norway. NSFA has requested a risk assessment of 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000 and 2400 mg/day of L-threonine from food supplements.  L-threonine is an essential amino acid not known to cause any adverse health effects. Previous reports do not indicate a tolerable upper intake level, apart from an approval of a dose of 1150 mg/day by the Scientific Committee of the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition (AESAN). Long-term studies in humans were not found. The only available human studies were: a small uncontrolled one-year pilot study with doses ranging from 0.5 to 2.5 g/day, one eight-week randomised controlled trial (RCT) using a dose of 7.5 g/day, and two 2-week RCTs using doses of 6 and 4.5 g/day. No adverse effects (diary method of registration of adverse effects) were reported in the eight-week clinical trial, and the only adverse effects observed in the two-week trials were one case of indigestion and one case of diarrhoea. A four-week rodent toxicity study indicated a no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) of 854.3 mg/kg bw per day (only dose tested, no adverse effects observed).  The value used for comparison with the estimated exposure in the risk characterisation is the NOAEL defined in an 8-week randomised placebo controlled study in humans, 7500 mg/day. For a 70-kg individual, this corresponds to 107 mg/kg bw per day. Two human two-week studies and a small one-year pilot study support the notion that this dose will be well tolerated. The overall mean threonine intake according to NHANES III (3 g/day) is slightly larger than the doses requested for evaluation in the present risk assessment. No studies in children (10 to <14 years) and adolescents (14 to <18 years) were identified. Based on the included literature there was no evidence indicating that age affects the tolerance for relevant doses of threonine. Therefore, in this risk characterisation a tolerance as for adults, based on body weight, was assumed for these age groups. VKM concludes that: In adults (≥18 years), the specified doses 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000 and 2400 mg/day L-threonine in food supplements are unlikely to cause adverse health effects. In adolescents (14 to <18 years), the specified doses 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000 and 2400 mg/day L-threonine in food supplements are unlikely to cause adverse health effects. In children (10 to <14 years), the specified doses 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000 and 2400 mg/day L-threonine in food supplements are unlikely to cause adverse health effects. Children younger than 10 years were not within the scope of the present risk assessment.

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