Cadmium, lead and mercury exposure assessment among Croatian consumers of free-living game

Abstract

Free-living game consumption has been recognised as an important source of dietary cadmium and lead raising the question if exposure to these two elements is such that it might cause adverse health effects for consumers. We estimated dietary exposure to cadmium, lead and mercury from free-living game (pheasant, hare, fallow deer, roe deer, red deer, wild boar, and brown bear) according to various consumption scenarios (rare, regular, and often) and available literature data on metals in game tissues hunted in Croatia from 1990 to 2012. Exposure was represented as percentage of (provisionally) tolerable weekly intake [(P)TWI] values set by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Because of the high percentage of free-living game liver samples, and especially kidney samples exceeding legislative maximum level for cadmium (2-99 %) and lead (1-82 %), people should keep the consumption of certain game species' offal as low as possible. Children, pregnant and lactating women should avoid eating game offal. This study indicates that exposure to toxic metals from rare consumption (assumed in the general population) of game meat (0.002-0.5 % PTWI) and liver (0.005-6 % PTWI) itself does not pose health risk to consumers, as does not regular (0.02-6 % PTWI) and often (0.1-24 % PTWI) consumption of game meat. Free-living game liver could be an important additional source of cadmium if consumed on a monthly basis (3-74 % TWI), and if consumed weekly (11-297 % TWI), it could even give rise to toxicological concern.