Scientific Opinion on Arsenic in Food

Abstract

The EFSA Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM Panel) assessed the risks to human health related to the presence of arsenic in food. More than 100,000 occurrence data on arsenic in food were considered with approximately 98 % reported as total arsenic. Making a number of assumptions for the contribution of inorganic arsenic to total arsenic, the inorganic arsenic exposure from food and water across 19 European countries, using lower bound and upper bound concentrations, has been estimated to range from 0.13 to 0.56 µg/kg bodyweight (b.w.) per day for average consumers, and from 0.37 to 1.22 µg/kg b.w. per day for 95 th percentile consumers. Dietary exposure to inorganic arsenic for children under three years of age is in general estimated to be from 2 to 3-fold that of adults. The CONTAM Panel concluded that the provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI) of 15 µg/kg b.w. established by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) is no longer appropriate as data had shown that inorganic arsenic causes cancer of the lung and urinary bladder in addition to skin, and that a range of adverse effects had been reported at exposures lower than those reviewed by the JECFA. The CONTAM Panel modelled the dose-response data from key for providing consumption information and calculating exposure, the partners of the EFSA project on the "Individual food consumption data and exposure" coordinated by Ghent University (Department of Public Health, University Hospital, Ghent University, Belgium), and RIKILT (Institute of Food Safety, Wageningen, The Netherlands) for the accessibility of the exposure assessment tools. 4 Table of contents shows now the fourth level of subheadings. 5 An error in the interpretation of the total number of the population in the study of Rahman et al. (2006a) was discovered (Table 41). The BMDL was recalculated and as a consequence it was not considered a potential reference point. The text in the opinion, Table 43 and Appendix were revised accordingly. In addition, the header of the "total number of cases" was replaced by "total number of individuals" in Tables 40-42 and the erroneous units were corrected to µg/L in the text below SUMMARYArsenic is a metalloid that occurs in different inorganic and organic forms, which are found in the environment both from natural occurrence and from anthropogenic activity. The inorganic forms of arsenic are more toxic as compared to the organic arsenic but so far most of the occurrence data in food collected in the framework of official food control are still reported as total arsenic without differentiating the various arsenic species. The need for speciation data is evident because several investigations have shown that especially in seafood most of the arsenic is present in organic forms that are less toxic. Consequently, a risk assessment not taking into account the different species but considering total arsenic as being present exclusively as inorganic arsenic would lead to a considerable overestimation of the health risk rel...

Cardiovascular effects of arsenic: clinical and epidemiological findings

“…As is ubiquitous; diet is the main source of total As for humans, but the organic compounds normally present in food, especially in fish and seafood, are considered non-toxic or of low toxicity. Populations living in coastal areas have on average higher urinary excretion of As than those living inland, without this in itself turning out in toxicity (Delgado-Andrade et al 2003;EFSA-CONTAM 2009;JECFA 2011;WHO-IARC 2012). Total urinary…”

Environmental effects on arsenosugars and arsenolipids in Ectocarpus (Phaeophyta)

“…[10] Generally, only a minor portion of arsenic in seaweed is in the form of the toxic arsenate taken up from the ocean. [4] The arsenic in seaweed is also not found in the form of arsenoesters as analogues to the phosphate esters in biomolecules such as phosphorylated proteins, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or adenosine triphosphate (ATP), but mainly found as arsenosugars in macroalgae. Most arsenosugars are dimethylarsinoylribosides and most can be associated with just four compounds, although 20 naturally occurring arsenosugars have been identified.…”

“…The AsPLs might therefore be formed first where the arsenosugars (AsSugars) are subsequently a hydrolysed product of the AsPLs. [15] These arsenic species are closely related because AsPLs have the same AsSugar structure as one of the most common AsSugars, AsSugarPO 4 . The formation of lipids before sugars would be the opposite of the transformation scheme proposed by Edmonds et al [16] (Fig.…”

“…[1][2][3] Arsenic can be toxic and is known to be carcinogenic; however, the toxicity is species-dependent and varies between arsenic species. [4] A large quantity of naturally occurring organic forms of arsenic are formed from inorganic arsenic that is taken up from the environment. The total arsenic (totAs) concentration in many seaweed species is high and can reach more than 100 mg kg À1 dry weight (DW).…”

“…Most arsenosugars are dimethylarsinoylribosides and most can be associated with just four compounds, although 20 naturally occurring arsenosugars have been identified. [4] Recently, it was established that besides arsenosugars, arsenic can form lipid-soluble dimethylarsinoyl species in seaweeds, [11,12] i.e. hydrocarbons (AsHC), fatty acids (AsFA) and phospholipids (AsPL), Fig.…”