ReviewDioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls contamination in poultry liver related to food safety – A review
Introduction
The European Legislation together with the increasing consumer's demands require the slaughterhouses' owners and processors of poultry meat to provide high quality and hygienically safe products. Thus, careful monitoring should be imposed on all factors of the flow process, which could in any way affect the finished product, by applying the principle “from farm to fork”.
Meat inspection, and in particular edible offal inspection, including liver, is one step of that monitoring. Indeed, the liver, a major organ involved in metabolic processes, is considered to be one of the most eloquent witness of any disturbance in the body, as it is the subject to different types of etiologic attacks: infectious, toxic, metabolic, nutritional and traumatic (Doneley, 2004).
For food from animal origin, one of the possible cause of exclusion from consumption because of a risk for public health is the contamination with chemical substances, in particular dioxins, which are lipophilic contaminants tending to accumulate in fatty tissues, but also in liver, an organ rich in proteins able to bind these molecules.
Offal consumption is not negligible in European Union. When analyzing the data extracted from the “Comprehensive European Food Consumption Database; Concise Data Base summary statistics- Total Population”, it can be seen that the consumption of edible offal, including poultry liver, is between 1 g/day (in Ireland) and 26.1 g/day (in Poland), with an average of 7.12 g/day for the European Union, considering the countries that participated to the survey (European Food Safety Authority, 2011).
In particular, poultry liver consumption needs a special attention. Indeed, poultry liver is considered to be an important source of nutrients, such as vitamins, macro elements and microelements. In some countries, it is used in pregnant women diet and in nutritional disorders. Although studies in different countries were conducted regarding dioxins contents of different foods, very few reports which have been published refer to these contaminants level in offal and in particular in poultry liver (Baars et al., 2004, Fernandes et al., 2010, Hsu et al., 2007, Windal et al., 2010).
The aim of this review was to emphasize the possible contribution of poultry liver to dioxin human exposure through food chain.
Section snippets
General data concerning the source and mode of action of dioxins
The term “dioxins” refers to a group of chemically and structurally related halogenated aromatic hydrocarbons including 75 polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and 135 polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) congeners. The properties, in term of toxicity and bioaccumulation, of individual dioxin and furan congeners differ considerably. From the 210 theoretically possible congeners, only those substituted in each of the 2-, 3-, 7- and 8-positions of the two aromatic rings are of toxicological
Measurement units related to PCDD/Fs and DL-PCBs
A 3-year study conducted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society (NATO/CCMS) concluded that the TEF (Toxicity Equivalency Factor) approach was the best available interim measure for PCDD/Fs and DL-PCBs risk assessment. On the basis of examination of the available data dealing with exposure, hazard assessment, and analytical methodologies related to dioxins, furans and DL-PCBs, an International Toxicity Equivalency Factor (I-TEF) was proposed (
Effects of dioxins in humans
According to the World Health Organization (2010), dioxins are “highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones and also cause cancer”. Short-term exposure of humans to high levels of dioxins may result in skin lesions, such as chloracne and patchy darkening of the skin and altered liver function. Long-term exposure is linked to impairment of the immune system, the developing nervous system, the endocrine system and
Historical context of dioxin contamination episodes
During the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, there were a series of dioxin related incidents that directly affected human or contaminated the soil and accumulate in feed and then in food products, such as poultry liver.
For a comprehensive review of dioxin in food or feed related incidents in the 20th and 21st century, see Thomson, Poms, and Rose (2012).
One of the most important episodes, which affected humans directly, was due to an incident in the US Monsanto chemical company, which
Absorption, distribution and toxicity of dioxins and PCBs in animals and poultry
Animal studies showed that after oral exposure through feed and water, PCDD/Fs and PCBs were distributed to liver and adipose tissue (Olson, 2003). In mammals, once absorbed through the intestinal tract, dioxins and furans are probably initially stored in the liver before being redistributed into more lipid-rich tissues, the rate of distribution depends on the tissue perfusion rate (Hansen, Wilson, Metcalf, & Welborn, 1976).
The proportions of these lipophilic contaminants have been noticed to
Data concerning poultry liver contamination with dioxins and PCBs
According to the Commission Regulation (EC) No 1881/2006, the maximum tolerance level for total PCDD/Fs and DL-PCBs in liver of terrestrial animals including chicken was 12 pg PCDDs/Fs DL-PCBs WHO1998-TEQ g−1 fat and 6 pg PCDD/Fs WHO1998-TEQ g−1 fat, until 31st December 2011.
Starting with the 1st January 2012, a modification of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1881/2006 was done, both to lower the maximal limit and to introduce the use of the WHO-TEF from 2005. The maximum tolerance level for
Conclusions
Although it is known that people ingest dioxins and PCBs because of background levels especially in animal products, this intake is not exceeding the current TWI of 14 pg kg−1 body weight per week, and thus it can be considered that there is no risk for human health to develop the specific signs of contamination.
Specifically for chicken liver, the data available in the literature seem to indicate that these background levels are not a concern, being below the European maximal limit, but more
Acknowledgments
This study is part of the POSDRU project 88/1.5/S/52614 “Doctoral scholarships for high quality training for young researchers in the field of agronomy and veterinary medicine” and it is part of the PhD thesis “Correlations between liver pathology in broiler chickens and food safety”- Oana-Mărgărita Ghimpeţeanu
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