Dietary intakes of lead and cadmium among residents in Hangzhou city

Objective To study dietary intakes of lead and cadmium among residents in Hangzhou city and to provide scientific bases for food-safety assessment.Methods Both food weighting and food recording were conducted among 1744 community residents(7-95 years old) selected with stratified cluster random sampling to collect information on total food consumption during 3 continuous days.Both lead and cadmium contents in the representative food samples were detected.Individual intake rates were then calculated and compared with corresponding tolerable limit values.Results The medians of dietary intake of lead and cadmium were 0.0092 mg/kgbw per week(accounting for 37.0% of provisional weekly tolerable intake) and 0.00093-0.0053 mg/kgbw per month(accounting for 3.7%-21.0% of provisional monthly tolerable intake) among the participants.The levels of lead and cadmium intake were different among the participants of 4 different age groups(P<0.001).The medians of dietary lead and cadmium intake among the young participants under the age of 18 years were 0.011mg/kgbw per week and 0.00077-0.016 mg/kgbw per month, respectively, and were higher than those of other age groups after multiple comparisons(P<0.008).Cereal food is the dominant contributor to individual dietary intake of lead and cadmium, accounting for 78.9% and 44.8% of overall intake, respectively.Conclusion The dietary intakes of lead and cadmium are generally under the health thresholds in the residents of Hangzhou city, but relatively higher in the children and adolescents than in the adults.