A Smart Approach for Food Contaminants Risk Management, Complementary to Diet Nutritional Balance

Author Info

Cristiana Guerranti Eleonora Bertacchini Stefano Maccanico Eleonora Grazioli Antonio Terlizzi Monia Renzi

Corresponding Author

Monia Renzi
Department of Life Science, University of Trieste, via L. Giorgieri, Trieste, Italy

A B S T R A C T

Food is usually the major source of human exposure to environmental contaminants like heavy metals and synthetic compounds. This study proposes a quick and simple approach to combine the estimate of the intake of certain pollutants with the diet, in combination with different nutritional plans (Mediterranean diet, weight loss and for athletes). The estimation of the intake of three heavy metals and two perfluoroalkyl substances was carried out by entering the type and quantity of the foods provided by each of the three selected dietary plans in the UltraBio® app. Recurring elements are high levels of Cd and Pb and very low levels of PFASs, for all the plans considered. The Mediterranean diet scheme was the one with the lowest intake of all contaminants, which, in any case, remains within the safety limits by a large margin. The high protein diet leads to exceeding the limits for two metals and critical values for the third. The advantages of this approach are mainly represented by the possibility of having a personalized risk assessment of the intake of important food contaminants for the prevention of exposures that, over time, could put health at risk.

Article Info

Article Type

Research Article

Publication history

Received: Fri 09, Jul 2021
Accepted: Sat 24, Jul 2021
Published: Tue 10, Aug 2021

Copyright

© 2023 Monia Renzi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.JFNM.2021.02.01