Cadmium, a toxic heavy metal, is widely present in food. It has been reported that chronic cadmium exposure is associated with kidney disease, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and cancer. The aim of this study was to assess the dietary cadmium exposure and potential health risk in different age-sex groups of the Chinese population (children aged 4–11 years, young people aged 12–17 years and adults aged over 18 years), and in the southern and northern population using a semi-probabilistic method. Cadmium was detected in 228,687 food samples from 32 food categrories by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. The dietary cadmium exposures were estimated by combining the cadmium concentration data with food consumption data derived from the China National Nutrient and Health Survey 2002, and evaluated against the Provisional Tolerable Monthly Intake (PTMI) of 25 μg/kg BW/month established by the Joint FAO/WHO expert committee on food additives (JECFA). The mean dietary cadmium exposure of the general Chinese population (15.3 μg/kg BW/month) was below the PTMI. The high consumer exposures (95th percentile, P95) for the general population and different sub-groups were higher than the PTMI. The dietary cadmium exposure of the southern population was apparently higher than that of the northern population. Rice was the most important contributor to cadmium exposure for Chinese people, especially those living in the southern areas of China. These findings indicated that the health risk from dietary cadmium exposure of the general Chinese people was low, but the health risk of cadmium exposure of certain sub-groups should be of concern.

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Nonnutritive sweeteners are the low calorie substances used to replace sugar and other caloric ones. Determination of these sweeteners in foods is important to ensure consistency in product quality. In this study, seven artificial (aspartame, saccharin, acesulfame-K, neotame, sucralose, cyclamate, and alitame) and one natural sweetener (stevioside) were simultaneously determined in different foods using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with electrospray ionization mass spectrometric detection (ESI-MS). The target compounds were quantified using a selective ionization recording (SIR) at m/z 178, 397, 377, 293, 641, 312, 162, and 182 to cyclamate, sucralose, neotame, aspartame, stevioside, alitame, acesulfame-K, and saccharin, respectively, with warfarin sodium (SIR m/z 307) being used as an internal standard. The correlation coefficient of the calibration curve was better than 0.998 (n = 6), in the range of 0.05 to 5.00 microg/mL for cyclamate, 0.30 to 30.0 microg/mL for sucralose, 0.10 to 10.0 microg/mL for neotame, 0.20 to 20.0 microg/mL for aspartame, 0.50 to 15.0 microg/mL for stevioside, 0.08 to 8.00 microg/mL for alitame, 0.10 to 15.0 microg/mL for acesulfame-K, and 0.05 to 5.00 microg/mL for saccharin. The limits of detection (LODs) were below 0.10 microg/mL, whereas the limits of quantification (LOQs) were below 0.30 microg/mL. It is concluded that the method has merits such as high sensitivity, specificity, and simplicity versus the those of the other methods reported in the literature.