A baseline study of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons distribution, source and ecological risk in Zhanjiang mangrove wetlands, South China

Dietary Heat-Treatment Contaminants Exposure and Cancer: A Case Study from Turkey

In this study, the 10-year dietary habits of patients diagnosed with cancer (n = 1155) were retrospectively analyzed, and the relationships between dietary (red meat, white meat, fish meat, French fries, bread, instant coffee, ready-to-drink coffee, Turkish coffee, and black tea) heterocyclic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, acrylamide, and N-nitrosamine-based risk scores and cancer types were statistically evaluated. The foods with the highest and lowest mean dietary heat-treatment contaminant risk scores were red meat and ready-to-drink coffee, respectively. There were statistically significant differences in the dietary heat-treatment contamination risk scores based on the cancer patients' demographic characteristics (sex, age, smoking, and body mass index) (p < 0.05). According to the cancer types, the systems with the highest and lowest dietary heat-treatment contaminant risk scores were determined as other (brain, thyroid, lymphatic malignancies, skin, oro- and hypopharynx, and hematology) and the reproductive (breast, uterus, and ovary) system, respectively. The relationship between instant coffee consumption and respiratory system cancer types, the frequency of consumption of French fries and urinary system cancer types and the consumption of meat products and gastrointestinal system cancer types were determined. It is thought that this study contains important findings regarding the relationship between dietary habits and cancer and will be a good source for other studies to be conducted in this context.

An approach to quantify heavy metals and their source apportionment in coal mine soil: a study through PMF model

Mining activities in the opencast coal mines contaminate the surrounding soil by releasing coal dust containing heavy metals (HMs). The objective of the present study was to quantify the concentration of HMs like Fe, Cu, Mn, Ni, Cr, Zn, and Co in soil on profile and distance basis in the vicinity of the coal mines. This research also proposed the synthesis application of positive matrix factorization (PMF) model for the quantitative assessment of pollution sources. The results showed that the soil was more affected due to the presence of Cr in mining areas., and the contamination factor (C_f) of Cr was high at the edge of coal mine. It was observed from the study that C_f of the HMs was decreased with the increase in distance from the mine edge. The application of PMF model demonstrated that the contributions of Zn (4.2%), Ni (16.8%), and Mn (100%) were maximum in the pollution. The study concluded that soil contamination is inexorable due to opencast coal mining activities, and it can be mitigated by developing a green belt or through the process of ecological restoration and phytoremediation.