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Contamination by Aflatoxins B/G in Food and Commodities Imported in Southern Italy from 2017 to 2020: A Risk-Based Evaluation

This study reports the results of aflatoxins B/G monitoring in food of vegetal origin, imported in Southern Italy from extra-European Union countries. From 2017 to 2020, we analyzed 1675 samples using an accredited HPLC method with fluorescence detection. We found out 295 samples (17.6%) were contam...

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Autores principales: Gallo, Pasquale, Imbimbo, Samantha, Alvino, Silvana, Castellano, Vincenzo, Arace, Olga, Soprano, Vittorio, Esposito, Mauro, Serpe, Francesco Paolo, Sansone, Donato
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8224785/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34067264
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins13060368
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author Gallo, Pasquale
Imbimbo, Samantha
Alvino, Silvana
Castellano, Vincenzo
Arace, Olga
Soprano, Vittorio
Esposito, Mauro
Serpe, Francesco Paolo
Sansone, Donato
author_facet Gallo, Pasquale
Imbimbo, Samantha
Alvino, Silvana
Castellano, Vincenzo
Arace, Olga
Soprano, Vittorio
Esposito, Mauro
Serpe, Francesco Paolo
Sansone, Donato
author_sort Gallo, Pasquale
collection PubMed
description This study reports the results of aflatoxins B/G monitoring in food of vegetal origin, imported in Southern Italy from extra-European Union countries. From 2017 to 2020, we analyzed 1675 samples using an accredited HPLC method with fluorescence detection. We found out 295 samples (17.6%) were contaminated by aflatoxin B1, 204 by aflatoxins B/G (12.2%), while 75 (4.5%) resulted non-compliant to maximum limits set by the European Union law. Most of the batches tested were unprocessed food; the distribution of contamination levels, incidence of non-compliant samples, inference for different kinds of food are reported. The study focuses on the food more susceptible to contamination by aflatoxins; nuts are the food more controlled, showing the higher number of non-compliant samples. Our study confirms that pistachio nuts, hazelnuts and almonds are the major sources of exposure for consumers. Still, other products, such as chili pepper and Brazil nuts, need to get more information about their contamination levels. The study’s findings are discussed in the perspective of the last opinion by EFSA about chronic exposure to aflatoxins. A case study to evaluate not compliance of a composed food to the European Union law is reported.
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spelling pubmed-82247852021-06-25 Contamination by Aflatoxins B/G in Food and Commodities Imported in Southern Italy from 2017 to 2020: A Risk-Based Evaluation Gallo, Pasquale Imbimbo, Samantha Alvino, Silvana Castellano, Vincenzo Arace, Olga Soprano, Vittorio Esposito, Mauro Serpe, Francesco Paolo Sansone, Donato Toxins (Basel) Article This study reports the results of aflatoxins B/G monitoring in food of vegetal origin, imported in Southern Italy from extra-European Union countries. From 2017 to 2020, we analyzed 1675 samples using an accredited HPLC method with fluorescence detection. We found out 295 samples (17.6%) were contaminated by aflatoxin B1, 204 by aflatoxins B/G (12.2%), while 75 (4.5%) resulted non-compliant to maximum limits set by the European Union law. Most of the batches tested were unprocessed food; the distribution of contamination levels, incidence of non-compliant samples, inference for different kinds of food are reported. The study focuses on the food more susceptible to contamination by aflatoxins; nuts are the food more controlled, showing the higher number of non-compliant samples. Our study confirms that pistachio nuts, hazelnuts and almonds are the major sources of exposure for consumers. Still, other products, such as chili pepper and Brazil nuts, need to get more information about their contamination levels. The study’s findings are discussed in the perspective of the last opinion by EFSA about chronic exposure to aflatoxins. A case study to evaluate not compliance of a composed food to the European Union law is reported. MDPI 2021-05-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8224785/ /pubmed/34067264 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins13060368 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Gallo, Pasquale
Imbimbo, Samantha
Alvino, Silvana
Castellano, Vincenzo
Arace, Olga
Soprano, Vittorio
Esposito, Mauro
Serpe, Francesco Paolo
Sansone, Donato
Contamination by Aflatoxins B/G in Food and Commodities Imported in Southern Italy from 2017 to 2020: A Risk-Based Evaluation
title Contamination by Aflatoxins B/G in Food and Commodities Imported in Southern Italy from 2017 to 2020: A Risk-Based Evaluation
title_full Contamination by Aflatoxins B/G in Food and Commodities Imported in Southern Italy from 2017 to 2020: A Risk-Based Evaluation
title_fullStr Contamination by Aflatoxins B/G in Food and Commodities Imported in Southern Italy from 2017 to 2020: A Risk-Based Evaluation
title_full_unstemmed Contamination by Aflatoxins B/G in Food and Commodities Imported in Southern Italy from 2017 to 2020: A Risk-Based Evaluation
title_short Contamination by Aflatoxins B/G in Food and Commodities Imported in Southern Italy from 2017 to 2020: A Risk-Based Evaluation
title_sort contamination by aflatoxins b/g in food and commodities imported in southern italy from 2017 to 2020: a risk-based evaluation
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8224785/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34067264
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins13060368
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