Is Metal Contamination A Health Risk In Study Subjects From Urban Vadodara?

Metal contamination of food is a major food safety concern emerging at global as well as national level. Air, water and soil are the major routes through which metals enter the food chain. Gujarat being the second most industrialized state of India and Vadodara having the highest number of chemical factories in Gujarat is at a higher risk of metal toxicity. Research has also been done to analyze metal contamination of raw food hence in the present study investigations were done on metal contamination of total diets. The objective was to analyze each meal of the day and water sample of the subjects for metal content by duplicate diet method. Duplicate diets, which included separate food samples for each food groups and drinking water were collected from sixty subjects from free living population of Vadodara. Food samples were digested using wet digestion method. In all 250 foods and 24 water samples were analyzed for metals namely, Aluminum, Arsenic, Cadmium, Mercury, Nickel and Lead using ICP-MS. Amongst all food groups pulse based product had highest contamination of Aluminum, Cadmium and Lead. Nickel contamination was highest in eggs. Arsenic contamination was highest in other items. Maximum Aluminum, Arsenic and Nickel in diets were contributed from cereals whereas maximum Lead and Cadmium was contributed from pulses in the diets. Aluminum, Lead, Cadmium and Nickel were in higher amounts in foods compared to their cutoffs. There is therefore an urgent need to look into possible factors for the high presence of metals in food and take remedial measures to reduce metal contamination.