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Health assessment of medicinal herbs, celery and parsley related to cadmium soil pollution-potentially toxic elements (PTEs) accumulation, tolerance capacity and antioxidative response

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Abstract

Celery and parsley are recognized as medicinal herbs and nutraceutical vegetables due to their valuable pharmacological properties and numerous health benefits. However, in recent years, soil loadings with various PTEs have become a serious concern across the world, leading to plants pollution, which can consequently diminish their quality and safety for human consumption. Therefore, we attempted to quantify quality and safety of celery and parsley grown in Cd polluted soil. We examined the presence of PTEs: As, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Cu and Cd in soil and selected herbs, as well as their physiological responses to different Cd exposures (control–without Cd addition, 3 and 6 µg/g Cd of dry soil). Following elevation of Cd in plants, both species showed increasing trend of As, Pb and Cu in plants, which overcome safe limits, with exception for Cu. Further, celery showed strong phytoextraction ability (99.9 µg/g Cd of dry weight) with high potential to tolerate Cd due to the efficient antioxidative machinery. Besides that herbs pollution was evident on the basis of target hazard quotients (HQ), hazard index (HI) and cancerogenic risk (CR), revealing that chronic consumption of contaminated herbs can consequently endanger human health. HI was greater than 1, while CR exceeded safe limits in treated plants, with exception for As. In the point of view of toxicology and food safety, growing of medicinal plants should be strictly regulated and distinguished based on the purpose of growing, and further herbs usage.

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Acknowledgements

Research was conducted and funded within the project entitled: “Biologically active components and medical potential of functional food grown in Vojvodina Province, Serbia’’ no. 114-451-2149/2016-03, financed by the Provincial Secretariat for Science and Technological Development, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, Serbia. The authors also acknowledge financial support of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia (Grant No. 451-03-68/2020-14/ 200125).

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  1. Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Trg Dositeja Obradovića 2, Novi Sad, Serbia

    Danijela Arsenov, Milan Župunski, Slobodanka Pajević, Milan Borišev & Nataša Nikolić

  2. Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Environmental Protection, Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Trg Dositeja Obradovića 3, Novi Sad, Serbia

    Neda Mimica-Dukić

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  1. Danijela Arsenov
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Arsenov D contributed to data curation; investigation; formal analysis; visualization; and writing—original draft, Župunski M was involved in conceptualization; methodology; investigation; and data curation, Pajević S contributrd to project administration and supervision, Borišev M was involved in methodology and formal analysis, Nikolić N contributed to validation and Mimica-Dukić N was involved in supervision and funding acquisition. All authors reviewed and approved the manuscript.

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Arsenov, D., Župunski, M., Pajević, S. et al. Health assessment of medicinal herbs, celery and parsley related to cadmium soil pollution-potentially toxic elements (PTEs) accumulation, tolerance capacity and antioxidative response. Environ Geochem Health 43, 2927–2943 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-020-00805-x

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