Risk assessment of aflatoxins in food products consumed in South Korea

A total of 694 food samples for aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) were assessed using a monitoring scheme consisting of enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for rapid screening and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for quantification. One hundred-four out of 694 samples were found to give positive ELISA readings and were further determined by HPLC analysis. Thirty-two samples including 2 maizes, 3 soybean products, 20 nuts and nut products and 7 spices were found to be contaminated with AFB1 (4.6% of incidence), ranging in various levels up to 48.6 μg kg. The contamination levels of AFB1 in 28 out of 32 contaminated samples were below 10 μg kg of AFB1, which is the legal tolerance limit in Korea. Based on the daily food consumption data, estimated exposure dose of AFB1 was 6.42 × 10 mg kg bw day. Furthermore, estimated excess cancer risk values to liver cancer incidence by ingestion of these foods IUFoST 2006 DOI: 10.1051/IUFoST:20060458