Nanomaterials in food products and their package: comparative analysis of risks and advantages

Abstract

Nanomaterials (NMs) are applied in many spheres related to food products manufacturing including nanodispersed forms of food substances, nano-encapsulates, and nano-micelles, food additives with improved functional characteristics, new packaging materials with enhanced gas-, photobarrier, and antimicrobic properties. High chemical and catalytic activity of nanoparticles (NPs) and their ability to penetrate through biological barriers and accumulate in a body makes a lot of NMs toxic, and their toxic properties are to be taken into account when assessing safety of the abovementioned products. There are some priority NMs from the point of view of risk assessment and prospective hygienic standardization; they are silver NPs, NPs of amorphous silicon dioxide (aerosil), titanium dioxide NPs, and carbon nanotubes. Results of toxicological-hygienic research performed on laboratory animals revealed that a probable allowable daily dose of silicon dioxide (SiO2) NPs consumed with food should not exceed 1 mg/kg of body weight. And as nanosized SiO2 is used as a food additive, an issue of its hygienic standardization and regulation is truly vital. Silver NPs exert various toxic effects that have been examined in vivo; these effects are based on their ability to promote a dozed release of cytotoxic ions of silver (Ag+) in target organs (first of all, in the liver) under exposure to endogenous oxidants. Signs of silver NPs toxicity become obvious starting from a dose equal to 1 mg/kg of body weight and a maximum noobserved-adverse-effect-level (NOAEL) can be estimated as 0.1 mg/kg. If values are recalculated for a human body taking into account adjusting coefficients, a non-hazardous dose of silver NPs under oral exposure amounts to 70 µg a day. This estimation coincides with the upper permissible level that is fixed in Russia for consumption of silver as a chemical element. Titanium dioxide NPs and carbon nanotubes considered as possible food contaminants in the long term cause population health risks that require profound toxicological-hygienic assessment.

In Vivo Study of Entero- and Hepatotoxicity of Silver Nanoparticles Stabilized with Benzyldimethyl-[3-myristoylamine)-propyl]ammonium Chloride (Miramistin) to CBF1 Mice upon Enteral Administration

“…New areas of application of nanoparticles appear every year, although the question of their safety has not yet been resolved, and the number of papers providing evidence of their toxicity to healthy animal cells is ever-increasing. Based on numerous toxicological studies performed on laboratory animals, the minimum AgNPs dose inducing the first signs of intoxication appears to be 1 mg/kg [60].…”

Development of the risk analysis methodology given the current safety challenges for public health in the Russian Federation: Vital issues and prospects

“…Гмошинского 4 . Исследованиям отдельных наноматериалов в среде обитания посвящен ряд научных работ Федерального государственного бюджетного учреждения науки «ФИЦ питания и биотехнологии» [23,24] и Федерального бюджетного учреждения науки «Федеральный научный центр медико-профилактических технологий управления рисками здоровью населения» [25][26][27].…”