Monitoring and Risk Assessment of Lead and Cadmium in Various Agricultural Products Collected from the Korean Market

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study was carried out to determine the levels of lead and cadmium as found in nine agricultural products (n = 578) sold in Korea, and to estimate the risk to human health that is summarily associated with their intake. The concentrations of Pb and Cd were measured using an ICP-MS after microwave digestion in this study. The average contents of Pb and Cd were measured as 0.014 and 0.017 mg/kg for barley, 0.006 and 0.005 mg/kg for mung bean, 0.008 and 0.007 mg/kg for kidney bean, 0.010 and 0.004 mg/kg for green bean, 0.008 and 0.001 mg/kg for pineapple, 0.016 and 0.002 mg/kg for apricot, 0.015 and 0.002 mg/kg for Japanese apricot, 0.021 and 0.002 mg/kg for plum and 0.019 and 0.003 mg/kg for jujube, respectively. The levels of Pb and Cd in the study samples were less than the maximum residual levels established by the European Union (EU), CODEX, and the Korea Food Code. As we have seen, the daily dietary exposures of Pb and Cd from these agricultural products for the general population were noted as 0.067% of PTWI ($25{\mu}g/kg$ b.w./week) and 0.28% of PTMI ($25{\mu}g/kg$ b.w./month), respectively. In line with the study conclusions, these results suggest that the current dietary intakes of Pb and Cd from these agricultural products in Korea have no appreciable risk effects on health for humans as noted in this experiment.