The Health Risk of Formaldehyde to Human Beings

Abstract

Problem statement: Formaldehyde was classified as a potential human carcinogen, identified by the US Environmental Protection Agency and International Agency for Research on Cancer as a Class 2A carcinogen. It also can cause irritation to human. However, formaldehyde present in biological fluids or tissues and environment as a result of natural processes or from man-made sources and can be emitted slowly into the air. Formaldehyde was used in many industries, hospitals and research as a sterilizing and preserving agent. The utmost concern of this study was about the present of formaldehyde in seafood product. Approach: A review was done on the health effect adverse by formaldehyde, formaldehyde toxicity to human, formaldehyde in seafood and methods to control formaldehyde in food and seafood. Google, Pubmed, Science Direct and Scopus were used in preparation of this review. Results: This review clarified that one of the formaldehyde source to human was seafood. Previous study showed that seafood contained high amount of formaldehyde because of natural production by postmortem enzymatic reaction besides the used of formaldehyde as preservative. Based on prior studies, exposure to formaldehyde can cause irritation and genotoxicity effect. For cancer effect studies, formaldehyde was long considered as a potential human carcinogen based on experimental animal studies and limited evidence of human carcinogenicity. Conclusion: Several mefinding of many health effect of formaldehyde, suggests that the investigation of level of formaldehyde in seafthods have been suggested to reduce formaldehyde in food such as cooking and washing. The ood should be done and also the level of formaldehyde natural production.

VOC Contamination in Hospital, from Stationary Sampling of a Large Panel of Compounds, in View of Healthcare Workers and Patients Exposure Assessment

“…Among aldehydes, adverse health effects of formaldehyde are well known. Exposure to this compound may increase the risk to develop a myeloid leukemia [38]. Levels of formaldehyde found in the six sampling sites were lower than the short-term guideline value of 100 µg/m 3 (30-minutes average concentration), and the long-term guideline value of 200 µg/m 3 established by WHO [30].…”

Retention of residual formaldehyde in treated Indian mackerel (Rastrelliger kanagurta) under iced storage and related food safety concern

“…The content of formaldehyde can depend upon fish species and storage conditions (Chanarat and Benjakul, 2013). Formaldehyde content noticed in the control samples can be attributed to the conversion of trimethylamineoxide (TMAO) to formaldehyde and dimethylamine (DMA) and its formation is determined by the duration and temperature of storage (Norliana et al, 2009). Leelapongwattana et al (2005) reported on the conversion of trimethylamine-N-oxide demethylase (TMAOase) to dimethylamine (DMA) and formaldehyde during ice storage.…”

An Estimation of Endogenous Formaldehyde Exposure due to Consumption of Indonesian Opah Fish (Lampris guttatus) in Three Major Export Destination Countries

“…Sufficient evidence showed that formaldehyde causes nasopharyngeal cancer, sinonasal cancer, and leukemia in human. However, formaldehyde is not considered to be a reproductive or developmental toxicant (Abdollahi & Hosseini, 2014;Aminah et al, 2013;EFSA, 2014;Tang, Bai, Duong, Smith, & Zhang, 2009;IARC, 2012;Norliana, Abdulamir, Bakar, & Salleh, 2009).…”