Ochratoxin A in Portugal: A Review to Assess Human Exposure

Abstract

In Portugal, the climate, dietary habits, and food contamination levels present the characteristics for higher population susceptibility to ochratoxin A (OTA), one of the known mycotoxins with the greatest public health and agro-economic importance. In this review, following a brief historical insight on OTA research, a summary of the available data on OTA occurrence in food (cereals, bread, wine, meat) and biological fluids (blood, urine) is made. With this data, an estimation of intake is made to ascertain and update the risk exposure estimation of the Portuguese population, in comparison to previous studies and other populations.

Ochratoxin A and Human Health Risk: A Review of the Evidence

“…Patients with end stage renal disease or nephritic syndrome in Egypt had significantly higher levels of urinary OTA than two reference groups (Wafa et al, 1998). The highest incidence of detectable OTA exposures in urine, 100%, were found by Petkova-Bocharova et al (Petkova-Bocharova et al, 2003) in a BEN-endemic region and in non-endemic regions including Portugal (Duarte et al, 2010b) and Italy (Breitholtz-Emanuelsson et al, 1994). The highest recorded levels of OTA in urine, 367 ng/ml and 1801 ng/ml, were found in two French siblings with renal failure (Godin et al, 1996).…”

Natural occurrence of aflatoxin B1, ochratoxin A and citrinin in Croatian fermented meat products

“…However, some countries have enforced OTA MRLs, for example Denmark (of 10 mg/kg in pig kidney), Estonia (of 10 mg/kg in pig liver), Romania (of 5 mg/kg in pig kidney, liver and meat) and Slovakia (of 5 mg/kg in meat and milk). Other countries have developed guidelines for recommended maximum OTA levels, for example Italy (pig meat and derived products, 1 mg/kg) (Duarte et al, 2010).…”

“…Ochratoxin A is mainly produced by Aspergillus ochraceus (Duarte, Pena, & Lino, 2010), citrinin by Penicillium citrinum, while P. verrucosum produces both of the toxins (Sweeney & Dobson, 1998). Because P. verrucosum is one of the major producers of ochratoxin A in cereals, it is not surprising that both mycotoxins often occur together, although citrinin presence has been reported much less frequently.…”

An immunochemical method for the determination of Ochratoxine A in the wine and its applications.

“…The port wines were chosen as increased concentrations of mycotoxins were expected due to the climatic conditions and the production technology (Gomez et al, 2006;Burdspal and Legarda, 2007;Duarte et al, 2010). As information about health damaging substances in Chinese grape wines is rare, five samples of white and red wines were obtained within a co-operation with Chinese partners.…”

“…4). Portská vína byla zvolena na základě předpokladu, že by tento druh vín, vzhledem ke klimatickým podmínkám a technologii zpracování, měl obsahovat zvýšené koncentrace mykotoxinů (Gomez et al, 2006;Burdspal a Legarda, 2007;Duarte et al, 2010). O obsahu zdraví škodlivých látek v čín-ských révových vínech je doposud jen málo informací, a proto bylo analyzováno také 5 vzorků bílých a červených vín získaných v rámci spolupráce s čínským partnerem.…”