Occurrence, dietary exposure and risk assessment of aflatoxins in arepa, bread and rice

The purpose of this study was to assess the risk of aflatoxins due to arepa, bread and rice consumption among the adult population of the Department of Caldas, Colombia. A high-performance liquid chromatography method with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FD) was validated and used to determine aflatoxins in 246 samples. Dietary exposure was calculated by estimated daily intake (EDI), whereas risk characterization was assessed using the risk of cancer and margin of exposure (MOE) approaches. The method showed good selectivity, linearity (R2 > 0.9993), limit of detection (LOD = 0.004–0.014 ng mL−1), limit of quantification (LOQ = 0.014–0.046 ng mL−1), accuracy (2.40%–14.1%), and recovery (58%–110%). Aflatoxins were detected in 38.6% of the samples at levels between 0.08 and 41.75 μg kg−1, and 11.4% of the samples contaminated with AFB1 exceeded the limit (2 μg kg−1) established by the European Commission (EC). The EDI of aflatoxins due to the consumption of arepa (0.732) and rice (3.093) were above the recommended level of 0.017 ng kg−1 bw day−1. Also, the estimated number of liver cancer cases associated with AFB1 exposure due to arepa (0.726) and rice (3.314) consumption was above the suggested limit of 0.1 cases/75 years/100,000 individuals. Finally, the MOEs obtained by arepa and rice consumption were 277.5 and 60.79, respectively, far from the safe margin of 10,000, thereby indicating a potential risk to public health.