Journal Article

Assessment of potential human health risks in aquatic products based on the heavy metal hazard decision tree

Ling, Min-Pei, Lin, Pinpin, Ku, Hao-Hsiang

2022

Overview

Background Naturally existing and human-produced heavy metals are released into the environment and cannot be completely decomposed by microorganisms, but they continue to accumulate in water and sediments, causing organisms to be exposed to heavy metals. Results This study designs and proposes heavy metal hazard decision trees for aquatic products, which are divided into seven categories including pelagic fishes, inshore fishes, other fishes, crustaceans, shellfish, cephalopods, and algae. Based on these classifications, representative fresh and processed seafood products are at the root of the heavy metal hazard decision trees. This study uses 2,107 cases of eating 556 cooked fresh or processed seafood product samples. The constructions of the proposed decision trees consist of 12 heavy metals, which include inorganic arsenic (iAs), cadmium (Cd), cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), strontium (Sr), thallium (Tl), and zinc (Zn). The heavy metal concentrations in cooked fresh and processed seafood product samples are subjected to a food safety risk assessment. Conclusions The results indicate the relationships among the seven categories of aquatic products, the relationships among 12 heavy metals in aquatic products, and the relationships among potential human health risks. Finally, the proposed heavy metal hazard decision trees for aquatic products can be used as a reference model for researchers and engineers.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Algae / Algorithms / Animals / Arsenic / Bioinformatics / Biomedical and Life Sciences / Cadmium / Cancer / Cephalopods / Chromium / Cobalt / Computational Biology/Bioinformatics / Computer Appl. in Life Sciences / Contamination / Copper / Crustaceans / Decision tree / Decision Trees / Environmental Monitoring / Fish / Fishes / Food / Food safety / Food safety risk assessment / Health aspects / Health risk assessment / Health risks / Heavy metal / Heavy metals / Humans / Iron / Lead / Life Sciences / Manganese / Metal concentrations / Metals, Heavy - analysis / Metals, Heavy - toxicity / Methods / Microarrays / Microorganisms / Nickel / Potential human health risk / Product safety / Research Article / Risk Assessment / Safety and security measures / Seafood / Sediments / Shellfish / Strontium / Supermarkets / Thallium / Zinc