TY - JOUR T1 - Assessment of hazards and risks associated with dietary exposure to mineral oil for the Belgian population JF - Food and Chemical Toxicology Y1 - 2021 A1 - Birgit Mertens A1 - Annelies Van Heyst A1 - Heidi Demaegdt A1 - Imke Boonen A1 - Kathy Van Den Houwe A1 - Séverine Goscinny A1 - Elskens, Marc A1 - Els Van Hoeck KW - CALUX® bioassay KW - endocrine activity KW - genotoxicity KW - Mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons KW - Mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons KW - Modified Ames test AB -

Recently collected dietary exposure data on mineral oil saturated (MOSH) and aromatic (MOAH) hydrocarbons were used to evaluate the risks associated with exposure to mineral oil through food for the Belgian population. For MOSH, the no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) value of 19 mg kg−1 bw day−1 based on the hepatic inflammation-associated granulomas found in a 90-day oral study in F-344 rats was used as point of departure (PoD). Due to existing toxicological uncertainties, the margin of exposure (MOE) approach was applied. In all investigated scenarios, the MOE values were well above 100, indicating that there is no direct health concern related to MOSH exposure for the Belgian population. Nevertheless, more appropriate risk assessment approaches for MOSH based on adequate PoD are needed. For dietary exposure to MOAH, which are potentially genotoxic and carcinogenic, no MOE values could be calculated due to the lack of adequate dose-response carcinogenicity data. In two investigated worst-case scenarios, a health concern related to MOAH exposure could not be excluded, highlighting that more data are needed to perform an adequate risk assessment. The possibility to use in vitro bioassays to collect such additional toxicological information for MOAH present in food samples was also investigated.

VL - 149 M3 - 10.1016/j.fct.2021.112034 ER -