Methylmercury varies more than one order of magnitude in commercial European rice

Christoph-Cornelius Brombach, Parinda Manorut, Piumi P.P. Kolambage-Dona, Mohamed Farouk Ezzeldin, Bin Chen, Warren T Corns, Jorg Feldmann, Eva Maria Krupp

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44 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

Rice is known to accumulate methylmercury (MeHg) in the rice grains. MeHg as a neurotoxin impacts on the human central nervous systems and especially on the developing brain. In this exploratory study, 87 commercial rice products sold in Europe, including nine baby-rice products, were analyzed for total Hg and MeHg content. MeHg concentration in all rice products investigated range from 0.11 to 6.45 μg kg-1 with an average value of 1.91 ± 1.07 μg kg-1 and baby-rice is not significantly different from other rice products. Total Hg ranges from 0.53 to 11.1 μg kg-1 with an average of 3.04 ± 2.07 μg kg-1. MeHg concentrations in all rice products studied in this work would not exceed the provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI). 30 % of all commercial market rice products exceeded 10% of the PTWI calculated for toddlers or 13 % of products for adults with rice based diet.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)360-365
Number of pages6
JournalFood Chemistry
Volume214
Early online date11 Jul 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2017

Bibliographical note

P.M. thanks the Royal Thai Government for funding and C.C.B. thanks the School of Natural and Computing Science and PS Analytical for funding.

Keywords

  • mercury
  • methylmercury
  • speciation
  • rice
  • market survey
  • food quality

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