Natural Occurrence of Deoxynivalenol in Cereal-Based Baby Foods for Infants from Western Poland

Deoxynivalenol (DON) and emerging Alternaria toxins often co-occur in cereal-based products, but the current risk assessment is commonly conducted for only one type of mycotoxin at a time. Compared to adults, infants and young children are more susceptible to mycotoxins through food consumption, especially with cereal-based food products which are the main source of exposure. This study aimed to perform a probabilistic risk assessment of combined exposure to DON and three major Alternaria toxins, namely including alternariol monomethyl ether (AME), alternariol (AOH), and tenuazonic acid (TeA) through consumption of cereal-based foods for Chinese infants and young children. A total of 872 cereal-based food products were randomly collected and tested for the occurrence of DON and three major Alternaria toxins. The results on mycotoxin occurrence showed the DON, TeA, AOH, and AME was detected in 56.4%, 47.5%, 7.5%, and 5.7% of the samples, respectively. Co-contamination of various mycotoxins was observed in 39.9% of the analyzed samples. A preliminary cumulative risk assessment using the models of hazard index (HI) and combined margin of exposure (MoET) was performed on DON and Alternaria toxins that were present in cereal-based food products for infants and young children in China for the first time. The results showed that only 0.2% and 1.5%, respectively, of individuals exceeded the corresponding reference value for DON and TeA, indicating a low health risk. However, in the case of AME and AOH, the proportion of individuals exceeding the reference value was 24.1% and 33.5%, respectively, indicating the potential health risks. In the cumulative risk assessment of AME and AOH, both HI and MoET values indicated a more serious risk than that related to individual exposure. Further research is necessary to reduce the uncertainties that are associated with the toxicities of the Alternaria toxins and cumulative risk assessment methods.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Combined Exposure to Deoxynivalenol and Emerging Alternaria Toxins in Cereal-Based Food Products for Infants and Young Children in China

Xiao

Lyu

et al. 2022

“…From 2014 to 2021, thirteen studies reported the presence of mycotoxins in cereal-based infants’/children’s food products in Europe. The majority of the studies verified that TCs, particularly DON, are the most prevalent mycotoxins [ 42 , 43 , 44 , 47 , 48 , 50 , 51 , 54 ]. In some of these studies, DON levels were above the maximum limit established by EC (200 µg/kg) [ 42 , 43 , 48 , 50 ].…”

Section: Major Mycotoxins In Cerealsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is also possible to see some distinctions between cereal-based food products for babies, for infants, and for children, as with different age groups there are different nutritional needs, different eating habits, and different susceptibilities. Some studies [ 48 , 50 , 54 ] clearly present their results with a separation of these types of products, where the first team divided their samples into infant cereals and breakfast cereals [ 48 ], the second team considered two types of samples, gluten-free samples for babies from 4 to 6 months of age and multi-cereals for infants aged 7 to 12 months [ 50 ], and the last team separated their samples by brand, type of cereal, and consumption age [ 54 ].…”

Section: Gaps In the Research Of Mycotoxins In Infant/children Cereal...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mycotoxins of Concern in Children and Infant Cereal Food at European Level: Incidence and Bioaccessibility

Pereira

Cunha

Fernandes

2022

Cereals are of utmost importance for the nutrition of infants and children, as they provide important nutrients for their growth and development and, in addition, they are easily digestible, being the best choice for the transition from breast milk/infant formula to solid foods. It is well known that children are more susceptible than adults to toxic food contaminants, such as mycotoxins, common contaminants in cereals. Many mycotoxins are already regulated and controlled according to strict quality control standards in Europe and around the world. There are, however, some mycotoxins about which the level of knowledge is lower: the so-called emerging mycotoxins, which are not yet regulated. The current review summarizes the recent information (since 2014) published in the scientific literature on the amounts of mycotoxins in infants’ and children’s cereal-based food in Europe, as well as their behaviour during digestion (bioaccessibility). Additionally, analytical methods used for mycotoxin determination and in vitro methods used to evaluate bioaccessibility are also reported. Some studies demonstrated the co-occurrence of regulated and emerging mycotoxins in cereal products used in children’s food, which highlights the need to adopt guidelines on the simultaneous presence of more than one mycotoxin. Although very little research has been done on the bioaccessibility of mycotoxins in these food products, very interesting results correlating the fiber and lipid contents of such products with a higher or lower bioaccessibility of mycotoxins were reported. LC-MS/MS is the method of choice for the detection and quantification of mycotoxins due to its high sensibility and accuracy. In vitro static digestion models are the preferred ones for bioaccessibility evaluation due to their simplicity and accuracy.

“…A survey of 13,629 samples from 77 countries around the world showed that the pollution rates for each continent were as follows: North America, 67%; South and Central America, 67%; Europe, 63%; Asia, 80%; the Middle East, 65%, and Africa, 75%, suggesting regular human exposure [ 3 ]. Global scientists pay attention to DON and its derivatives because of their high contaminated rates and significant deleterious effects on humans and animals [ 2 , 4 ], and the fact that risk assessments by food safety authorities reported exposure to potentially exceed established health-based guidance values for parts of the population [ 5 , 6 ]. The occurrence of DON was observed in 450 wheat samples collected during 2013–2015 in Jiangsu province, China.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interindividual Differences in In Vitro Human Intestinal Microbial Conversion of 3-Acetyl-DON and 15-Acetyl-DON

Jin

Rietjens

et al. 2022

In order to evaluate the potential differences between 3-Ac-DON and 15-Ac-DON in the human intestinal microbial metabolism, human fecal samples were anaerobically cultured in vitro. Quantitative fecal microbiota characteristics were obtained by 16S rRNA sequencing, and the data revealed several genera that may be relevant for the transformation of the acetylated DONs. Significant differences in the level of 3-Ac-DON and 15-Ac-DON conversion were observed among microbiota from different human individuals. 3-Ac-DON could be rapidly hydrolyzed; a ten-fold difference was observed between the highest and lowest in vitro conversion after 4 h. However, 15-Ac-DON was not fully transformed in the 4 h culture of all the individual samples. In all cases, the conversion rate of 3-Ac-DON was higher than that of 15-Ac-DON, and the conversion rate of 3-Ac-DON into DON varied from 1.3- to 8.4-fold that of 15-Ac-DON. Based on in vitro conversion rates, it was estimated that 45–452 min is required to convert all 3-Ac-DON to DON, implying that deacetylation of 3-Ac-DON is likely to occur completely in all human individuals during intestinal transit. However, for conversion of 15-Ac-DON, DON formation was undetectable at 4 h incubation in 8 out of the 25 human samples, while for 7 of these 8 samples conversion to DON was detected at 24 h incubation. The conversion rates obtained for these seven samples indicated that it would take 1925–4805 min to convert all 15-Ac-DON to DON, while the other 17 samples required 173–734 min. From these results it followed that for eight of the 25 individuals, conversion of 15-Ac-DON to DON was estimated to be incomplete during the 1848 min intestinal transit time. The results thus indicate substantial interindividual as well as compound specific differences in the deconjugation of acetylated DONs. A spearman correlation analysis showed a statistically significant relationship between deconjugation of both acetyl-DONs at 4 h and 24 h incubation. Based on the in vitro kinetic parameters and their scaling to the in vivo situation, it was concluded that for a substantial number of human individuals the deconjugation of 15-Ac-DON may not be complete upon intestinal transit.