Occurrence of Aflatoxin M1 in Pasteurized Doogh Commercialized in Tehran, Iran

Doogh is a popular dairy product in Iran owing to its beneficial influence on human health and nutritional value. The aim of this study was to evaluate aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) contamination in 225 commercial doogh samples composed of traditional (115 samples) and industrial pasteurized doogh (110 samples) obtained from popular markets of Tehran, Iran. The occurrence and concentration range of AFM1 in the samples was investigated by the high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. Then data were analyzed statistically by applying ANOVA. AFM1 was found in 100% of the examined doogh samples by average concentration of 49.7 ng/l. Aflatoxin M1 was detected in 151 (67.1%) samples, consisted of 83 (72.1%) traditional doogh samples (mean:52.3ng/l; range: 5.8–211 ng/l) and 68 (61.8%) industrial pasteurized doogh samples (mean: 46.4 ng/l; range:7.8–152 ng/l) in Tehran. Just, 27 of the doogh samples, 15 samples (12.8%) of traditional and 12 samples (10.8%) of industrial in Tehran had higher AFM1 level than the maximum tolerance limit (50 ng/l) accepted by European Union but the contamination level was lower than 500 ng/l in all the samples, which is accepted by Codex Alimentarius and National Standard. The results indicated that the contamination of the samples with AFM1 in such a level could not be a serious public health problem at the moment. This paper represents the data of the first survey on the occurrence of AFM1 in commercial doogh marketed traditional and industrial in Tehran of Iran.