Element Contents in Three Commercially Important Edible Mollusks Harvested off the Southwestern Coast of Crimea (Black Sea) and Assessment of Human Health Risks from Their Consumption

Abstract

Mollusks are a prospective food for the world’s growing population, but the contents of toxic and essential trace elements in them have not been studied comprehensively. In this work, using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, the contents of 72 elements in soft tissues of the edible mollusks Mytilus galloprovincialis, Rapana venosa, and Crassostrea gigas from the coastal area of the southwestern Crimea were estimated and compared with the maximum permissible levels. Element accumulation similarities were observed in the two bivalve species. Cluster analysis applied to the non-normalized contents allowed finding an optimal number of non-overlapping element clusters: 1 group of macroelements, 1–2 groups of trace elements, and 1–2 groups of ultratrace elements. As an outcome of this analysis, the element accumulation universality index was introduced, which demonstrated the accumulation universality decrease in the order: mussel > sea snail > oyster. An original approach to estimating the mollusk consumption rate was proposed to assess human health risks. Two possible consumption scenarios were identified for Crimean residents. From the expected consumption of all species in both scenarios, there are no health risks, but they are not excluded, within the 95% probability, from high consumption of mussels and sea snails in the pessimistic scenario.