Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Bioaccessibility in Meat: a Tool for Assessing Human Cancer Risk

Concern over polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in foodstuffs was started during the 1960s and 1970s, where two classes of food toxicants producing tumours have been focused i.e. polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and N-nitroso compounds (Jägerstad and Skog, 2005). PAHs are referring to a series of organic compound containing two or more fused aromatic rings (Danyi et al., 2009; El-Badry, 2010). PAHs constitute a large class of organic compounds (about 10,000 substances) characterized by a structure made up of carbon and hydrogen atoms (Danyi et al., 2009; Ishizaki et al., 2010; Plaza-Bolańos et al. 2010). PAHs are non-polar compounds with the characteristic of lipophilic, semi-volatile and persistence properties (Plaza-Bolańos et al., 2010; Palm et al., 2011). PAHs comprise of light PAHs (those containing up to four fused benzene rings) and heavy PAHs (those containing more than four benzene rings). Heavy PAHs are known to be more stable and toxic than light PAHs (Al-