Assessment of risks of essential and toxic elements exposure contained in foodstuff for workers of mining and processing industry

Abstract

Introduction. Based on the average consumption of foodstuff, as well as data of the chemical composition of foodstuff, there are calculated the hazard coefficients and indices, individual risk for men working at the "Erdenet" mining and processing plant in Mongolia. The study aims to assess the health risks of mining and processing workers in Mongolia when exposed to essential Cu, Mo, Se and toxic elements As, Cd, Pb, Hg. Materials and methods. The content of essential and toxic elements in food rations was calculated from the data of multi-element analysis of samples of local foodstuff, conducted by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. 30 samples of foodstuff were examined for the content of elements: essential Cu, Mo, Se and toxic As, Cd, Pb, Hg. The calculation of carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risk was carried out in accordance with the guidelines P 2.1.10.1920-04. Results. An imbalance of the average daily intake of essential elements with the diet in the body of workers has been established: selenium consumption is 80.23% lower than the recommended norms of physiological needs; while the consumption of molybdenum is exceeded by 40.97%. The main sources of molybdenum are bread and bakery products (73.9%) produced from local raw materials. Limitations. Our study has a number of significant uncertainties related to the identification of the danger of individual toxicants, incomplete ideas about the levels of consumption of vegetables and fruits and their content of essential food substances and contaminants that were not included in the study of chemical composition. Conclusions. The calculated index of the non-carcinogenic hazard of toxic elements for the health of employees was 0.52, where 0.3 is by arsenic. The main contribution to the total HQ is the intake of essential and toxic elements from food (96.86%), while only 3.14% comes from drinking water.