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Innovative health risk assessments of heavy metals based on bioaccessibility due to the consumption of traditional animal medicines

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Abstract

Few studies reported the extent of heavy metal accumulation in traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs). Currently, oral bioaccessibility of lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), arsenic (As), mercury (Hg), and copper (Cu) present in traditional animal medicines was investigated with physiologically based extraction test–extracted in vitro model. We are the first to develop a health risk assessment strategy by combinational analysis of bioaccessible heavy metal levels to calculate target hazard quotient (THQ), target hazard index (THI) and cancer risk (CR), which has capacity to evaluate the heavy metal associated heath risk of traditional animal medicines. To precisely acquire a realistic risk assessment, questionnaire data was adopted to measure the frequency and duration of the exposure to traditional animal medicines, and the safety factor was highlighted as well. Our data revealed that the bioaccessibility of Hg was the lowest among the five heavy metals. After the adjustment with the bioaccessibility of each heavy metal to target hazard index (THI) values, excitingly, the results manifested that the consumption of traditional animal medicines might not exert an unacceptable health risk in a broad community. In addition, the CR values of As and Pb indicated that the risk of developing cancers was quite lower than their acceptable levels in the clinic.

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Abbreviations

TCMs:

Traditional Chinese Medicines

PBET:

the physiologically based extraction test

CR:

lifetime cancer risk

CSF:

cancer slope factor

CDI:

chronic daily intake

ICP-MS:

inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

PPRC:

Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China

THQ:

target hazard quotient

THI:

target hazard index

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Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to Dr. Yuanjun Shen from the University of Pittsburgh for the useful suggestions.

Funding

This study was supported by the National Major Scientific and Technological Special Project for “Significant New Drugs Development” (2018ZX09735006) and Project for Medicine and Medical Instruments Review and Approval System Reform (ZG2016-1).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institutes for Food and Drug Control, No. 2 Tiantan Xili, Dongcheng District, Beijing, 100050, China

    Tian-Tian Zuo, Hong-Yu Jin, Fei-Ya Luo, Kun-Zi Yu, Fei Gao, Qi Wang, Lei Sun & Shuang-Cheng Ma

  2. Xi’an Jiaotong University, No. 28 Xianning Xi Road, Xi’an 710049, Beijing, 100022, China

    Tian-Tian Zuo, Lei Sun & Huai-Zhen He

  3. Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, 100029, China

    Hao-Ran Qu

  4. China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, Beijing, China

    Lei Zhang

Authors
  1. Tian-Tian Zuo
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  2. Hao-Ran Qu
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  4. Lei Zhang
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  8. Qi Wang
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  9. Lei Sun
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  10. Huai-Zhen He
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  11. Shuang-Cheng Ma
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Contributions

SCM and HYJ designed the study. TTZ, HRQ, and LZ conducted the experiments. TTZ analyzed the data. TTZ wrote the manuscript. HZH, SCM, LS, FG, QW, and FYL revised the manuscript. KZY authenticated the samples. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Lei Sun, Huai-Zhen He or Shuang-Cheng Ma.

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Zuo, TT., Qu, HR., Jin, HY. et al. Innovative health risk assessments of heavy metals based on bioaccessibility due to the consumption of traditional animal medicines. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 22593–22603 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-08769-2

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