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Levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in foods from the first regional Sub-Saharan Africa Total Diet Study

Year of publication 2020

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 10p.

Author Vaccher, V., Ingenbleek, L., Adegboye, A., Hossou, S. E., Koné, A. Z., Oyedele, A. D., ... & Cariou, R.

Publisher Elsevier B.V. ;

Product type Article

Synopsis (short abstract) For the first time, a multi-centre Total Diet Study was carried out in Benin, Cameroon, Mali and Nigeria. We collected and prepared as consumed 528 typical fatty foods from those areas and pooled these subsamples into 44 composites samples. These core foods were tested for a wide spectrum of POPs, including polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), brominated flame-retardants (BFRs), organochlorine compounds (OCs), perfluoro alkyl substances (PFAS) and chlorinated flame retardants (CFRs). The POPs contamination levels were similar or lower than those reported in total diet studies previously conducted worldwide. In most cases, core foods belonging to fish food group presented higher POPs concentrations than the other food groups. Interestingly, we observed a difference in both contamination profile and concentration for smoked fish compared to non-smoked fish. Such finding suggests that the smoking process itself might account for a large proportion of the contamination. Further investigation would require the assessment of combustion materials used to smoke fish as a potential vehicle, which may contribute to the dietary exposure of the studied populations to POPs.

Open Access Article. This article is academically peer-reviewed and published externally. The article is published in Environment International Volume 135, Article 105413 in February 2020

Cite this content as:

Vaccher, V., Ingenbleek, L., Adegboye, A., Hossou, S. E., Koné, A. Z., Oyedele, A. D., ... & Cariou, R. (2020). Levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in foods from the first regional Sub-Saharan Africa Total Diet Study. Environment International, 135, 105413.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2019.105413.

Language English

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