Poster: Dietary Cadmium Intake in an Italian Population
- Details
- Published on Wednesday, 14 October 2015 15:00
Objectives
Cadmium has been recognized as a carcinogen on the basis of occupational studies. The main source of exposure to cadmium, except for smokers and for occupationally-exposed individuals, is food. It has been reported that more than 80% of food-based cadmium comes from cereals and vegetables . The average cadmium intake from food generally varies between 8 and 25 µg/day . However, the amount of exposure may differ among individuals. Limited evidence about current main sources of cadmium intake in the Italian population, however, is available.
Materials and Methods
We estimated cadmium intake in 719 residents of Bologna, Ferrara, Modena, Parma and Reggio Emilia, five provinces of Emilia Romagna region in northern Italy. We used a validated food frequency questionnaire specifically developed as a part of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study specific for the Northern Italy population. Participants were asked to respond to 248 questions about 188 different food
items, including seasonal foodstuffs, and to indicate the number of times a given item was consumed (per day, week, month, or year). The food items were then linked to the Italian Food Tables to obtain estimates of Cd dietary intake. We calculated the cadmium dietary intake and we identified the
food categories or single foods which gave a major contribution to cadmium intake.
Results
Daily average cadmium intake was 14.04 (±7.82) µg, 0.21 µg/kg body weight in women and 0.19 µg/kg body weight in men. These values are lower than those reported for the whole European population (0.36 µg/kg body weight/die) and they are unequivocally below to the limit of 1 μg/kg established by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food. In fact, in the current study food categories that most contributed to cadmium intake were mushrooms (30.6%), rice (16.9%), pasta (7.6%), bread (6.1%), leafy vegetables (5.3%) and shellfish (4.2%).
Conclusions
Our analysis suggests that cadmium exposure to this northern Italy population is lower than that expected on the basis of the European average intake.
