Sources of cadmium exposure in an Italian population: a cross-sectional study

Sources of cadmium exposure in an Italian population: a cross-sectional study

Assessment of cadmium levels in serum, toenails and diet: A cross sectional study in Modena, Northern Italy.

Assessment of cadmium levels in serum, toenails and diet: A cross sectional study in Modena, Northern Italy

Dietary exposure to cadmium in a northern italy population

Background and AimsCadmium (Cd) is a heavy metal which can bevery harmful to the human health, mainlyintroduced into the body through diet.Limited data are available on the amount ofCd contained in vegetable and animal foods.MethodsWe selected foods characterizing the diet ofEmilia-Romagna region population using theresults of an EPIC survey, by selecting from alist of 233 foods foodstuffs and drinks havingaverage consumption ≥3 g/day. Cddeterminations of foods were performed atIren Acqua Gas - IREN company, ReggioEmilia, using mass spectrometer inductivelycoupled plasma following mineralization ofthe food samples. From the results of theEPIC semi-quantitative food frequencyquestionnaire administered to 1099 residentsin the Emilia-Romagna region, we assesseddaily foodstuffs consumption and wecalculated dietary Cd intake.ResultsThe highest average Cd concentration (μgCd/100 g food) was found in cereals (1.14),fish and mussels (5.10), chocolate (8,5),vegetables (0.8) and particularly wildmushrooms (268,90).Average daily Cd intake in the studypopulation resulted to be 11.11 μg, mainlydue to intake of vegetables, wild mushrooms,cereals, fish and mussels.Considering that the European Food SafetyAuthority set in 2010 the tolerable Cd weeklyintake as 2.5 μg/kg body weight (25 μg/dayfor a 70-kg individual) daily intake calculatedin our population did not exceed such limit.According the EC Regulation 1881/2006, inour study only wild mushrooms (2,69 mg/kg)exceeded such limits.ConclusionsThe Cd weekly intake characterizing ourstudy population did not exceed the EFSAlimits. However, considering the high toxicityof this heavy metal particularly for chronicexposure and the relatively high intakeswhich may characterize consumers of largeamounts of wild mushrooms, vegetables,cereals and fish, the issue of dietary Cd intakein the Italian population and its relatedhealth effects appears to be an importantpublic health issue

A case-control study of the risk of cutaneous melanoma associated with three selenium exposure indicators

Aims and background. A direct association between exposure to the metalloid sele-nium and risk of cutaneous melanoma has been suggested by some observational and experimental cohort studies, whereas other studies have yielded inconsistent re-sults. Since some of the inconsistencies may be due to exposure misclassification arising from the use of exposure indicators that do not adequately reflect body tissue selenium content or the levels of the biologically relevant species of this metalloid, we examined this issue using multiple indicators of exposure. Methods. We analyzed the relation of selenium exposure with risk of cutaneous melanoma using two different biomarkers, plasma and toenail selenium concentra-tion, and estimated dietary selenium intake in a community-based case-control se-ries (54 cases, 56 controls) from an Italian community. Results. In unmatched and matched logistic regression models as well as nonpara-metric generalized additive models, higher plasma selenium levels were strongly as-sociated with excess disease risk. In contrast, toenail and dietary selenium exhibited little relation with melanoma risk. The pattern of correlation among indicators of ex-posure differed by disease status, with dietary intake associated with plasma seleni-um levels in patients but not in controls. Conclusions. Our data showed that different selenium exposure indicators can yield different inferences about melanoma risk. Although the series was small, our results are consistent with a positive association between circulating levels of selenium and melanoma risk. Further investigation of the exposure classification performance of various selenium biomarkers and of metabolic patterns of the metalloid and of its speciation are needed to help elucidate the relation between selenium exposure and human health