Multielemental contents of foodstuffs from the Wanshan (China) mercury mining area and the potential health risks

Potentially harmful element contamination from mining and smelting raises concerns due to possible health risks. For most people, diet is the main route of exposure to potentially harmful elements, so determination of the concentrations of these elements in foodstuffs and assessment of their possible risk for humans via dietary intake is very important. This study was designed to investigate the concentrations of different elements, including Hg, Pb, Cd, Mn and Se in foodstuffs and to estimate the potential health risk of these elements via consumption of polluted foodstuffs in the Wanshan Hg mine area, Guizhou province, SW China. The multielemental concentrations were determined by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The target hazard quotient (THQ) and hazard index (HI) were calculated to evaluate the potential health risk from individual and combined potentially harmful elements due to dietary intake. The average contents of Hg, Pb, Cd, Mn and Se in the most frequently consumed foodstuffs were: 31, 248, 121, 1035 and 32 μg/kg respectively. Among them, Cd and Hg were the most important contributors to potentially harmful elements contamination in Wanshan. Eight of 10 kinds of vegetables were contaminated to various levels by different elements but the samples of rice, pork, radish and potato were below the stipulated limits for toxic elements. In this study, the average dietary intakes of Hg, Pb, Cd, Mn, Se by an adult man of 60 kg living in Wanshan were: 27, 167, 86, 1061, 42 μg/day, respectively. The HIs for multielement dietary intake was 3.11, with the relative contributions of Hg, Pb, Cd, Mn and Se being 22.3%, 24.3%, 45.0%, 3.9% and 4.4%, respectively, which indicated that consumption of food poses a potential health risk. Vegetables were found to be the main source of potentially harmful element dietary intake.