A Survey on Lead and Cadmium Content in Bread Produced in Yazd

Introduction: Due to such complications of absorbing lead and cadmium heavy metals as kidney and liver dysfunction, vascular and heart diseases, anemia, digestive complications, nervous and skeletal problems and due to importance of bread as one of the most important food diets in Iran, especially in Yazd, the amount of lead and cadmium was evaluated in a variety of breads in Yazd. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in 2013. Out of 69 bakeries, random probability proportionate sampling was applied in order to measure the heavy metals (lead and cadmium content) in samples by ash and atomic absorption equipped with grafiti furnace(ETAAS) with correction of background time. The study data were analyzed using SPSS (v.17) considering p-value of less than 0.05 as significant. Results: The average amounts of lead and cadmium were 99.05 and 7.49 mg/kg respectively. The amount of lead in Sangak bread was higher than that of other types of breads, whereas lead amounts of fantasy bread was reported less than those of other breads. Cadmium content demonstrated no significant differences among breads. Lead amount was higher in direct heat breads. Whereas, cadmium amount showed no significant differences between direct and indirect heat breads. It is worth mentioning that lead and cadmium content were reported lower than allowable levels in all samples. Conclusions: As the study results revealed and considering per capita consumption of bread in Iran (about 160 kg), it seems that weekly intake of lead and cadmium in Yazd is at an acceptable level, though possible risk of heavy metals(lead and cadmium) need to decrease in order to prevent the probable risks of lead and cadmium heavy metals