Submitted:

29 June 2018

Posted:

29 June 2018

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Abstract
Lead, a metal with high neurotoxicity to children; cadmium, a carcinogenic and bioaccumulative contaminant and arsenic; a class 1 carcinogenic, are toxic elements (TEs) whose relevant route of exposure may be diet. We determined the bioaccessible fraction of lead, cadmium and arsenic from the diet of preschool children from 2 day care centers (DCC). A cross-sectional study was conducted with 64 1–4-year-old children from 2 DCCs, where the 24-hour duplicate diet samples were collected. The diet samples were analyzed by ICP-MS for lead, cadmium and arsenic total concentrations (n = 64) and their bioaccessibility were analyzed for a subsample (n = 10). The dietary intake (DI) mean for lead, cadmium and arsenic were 0.18 ± 0.11 µg kg−1bw, 0.08 ± 0.04 µg kg −1bw and 0.61 ± 0.41 µg kg−1bw, respectively. All DI calculated for TEs, considering total intake, were found lower than the tolerable limits (European Union, EU, or World Health Organization, WHO, when applicable), except for one child’s Pb intake. Bioaccessibilities ranged between 0–93%, 0–103% and 0–69%, for lead, cadmium and arsenic, respectively. Although DI for TEs has been found lower than TI, these reference values have been recently decreased or withdrawn, as it was the case for lead and arsenic, whose tolerable limits were withdrawn by WHO.
Keywords: 
Subject: 
Medicine and Pharmacology  -   Pharmacology and Toxicology
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.
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