Application of food description to the food classification system: Evidence of risk assessment from Taiwan as Acrylamide of grain products

Review of the Terminology, Approaches, and Formulations Used in the Guidelines on Quantitative Risk Assessment of Chemical Hazards in Food

This paper reviews the published terminology, mathematical models, and the possible approaches used to characterise the risk of foodborne chemical hazards, particularly pesticides, metals, mycotoxins, acrylamide, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The results confirmed the wide variability of the nomenclature used, e.g., 28 different ways of referencing exposure, 13 of cancer risk, or 9 of slope factor. On the other hand, a total of 16 equations were identified to formulate all the risk characterisation parameters of interest. Therefore, the present study proposes a terminology and formulation for some risk characterisation parameters based on the guidelines of international organisations and the literature review. The mathematical model used for non-genotoxic hazards is a ratio in all cases. However, the authors used the probability of cancer or different ratios, such as the margin of exposure (MOE) for genotoxic hazards. For each effect studied per hazard, the non-genotoxic effect was mostly studied in pesticides (79.73%), the genotoxic effect was mostly studied in PAHs (71.15%), and both effects were mainly studied in metals (59.4%). The authors of the works reviewed generally opted for a deterministic approach, although most of those who assessed the risk for mycotoxins or the ratio and risk for acrylamide used the probabilistic approach.

Acrylamide, an air pollutant, enhances allergen-induced eosinophilic lung inflammation via group 2 innate lymphoid cells

Air pollution significantly impacts the aggravation of asthma. Exposure to acrylamide, a volatile organic compound in tobacco smoke, is associated with elevated risks of allergy-related outcomes among active smokers. As group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) can act as an environmental sensor and significantly contribute to protease allergen-induced lung inflammation, we aimed to elucidate the causal relationship and how inhaled acrylamide worsens allergic lung inflammation via ILC2s. Intranasal acrylamide exposure at nanomolar levels significantly enhanced allergen-induced or recombinant mouse interleukin-33-induced lung inflammation in C57BL/6 mice or Rag1-/- mice, respectively. The cardinal features of lung inflammation included accumulated infiltration of ILC2s and eosinophils. Transcriptomic analysis revealed a gene expression pattern associated with proliferation-related pathways in acrylamide-treated ILC2s. Western blotting revealed significantly higher expression of Ras and phospho-Erk in acrylamide-treated ILC2s than the control, suggesting Ras-Erk signaling pathway involvement. Ex vivo and in vitro analysis showed that acrylamide treatment mainly increased Ki-67+ ILC2s and the cell number of ILC2s whereas PD98059, a highly selective Erk inhibitor, effectively counteracted the acrylamide effect. Intratracheal administration of acrylamide-treated ILC2s significantly enhanced eosinophil infiltration in Rag1-/- mice. This study suggests that airborne acrylamide may enhance the severity of allergen-induced airway eosinophilic inflammation, partly via altering ILC2 proliferative activity.

European Food Safety Authority open access tools to estimate dietary exposure to food chemicals

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has developed a suite of open access tools to estimate dietary exposure to food-borne chemical hazards. The tools are tailored to several regulatory domains within EFSA's remit (e.g. food and feed additives, pesticide residues, contaminants and food enzymes) and are intended for use by EFSA experts, industry applicants of regulatory product dossiers, researchers or any stakeholder with an interest in estimating dietary exposure using European food consumption data. The majority of the tools are based on FoodEx2, EFSA's food classification and description system as well as the EFSA Comprehensive European food consumption database. This paper provides an overview of these open access tools, the regulatory framework in which they were developed as well as data sources used.

The Integration of Recipes with a Standardizable Food Description FACET for Cadmium Exposure Risk Assessment

Existing food classification and description systems provide users with limited information related to exposure assessment. Our aim in this work is to propose a standardized food description facet called the Taiwan Food Recipe (TFR) system as an emerging tool for food composition, with detailed food ingredient information, including names, proportions, weights of uncooked and cooked foods, etc. The composite foods listed in the Taiwan Nutrition and Health Survey were collected into a list and as consumption data. The TFR system is intended to help analysts reduce potential estimation bias, where, for example, risk assessment results may be overestimated or underestimated due to the complexity of the composition in the composite foods. Based on a Taiwanese food database, we further illustrate and demonstrate how the TFR system can be applied to the assessment of risk of cadmium (Cd) exposure in rice ingredients in the composite food products. In the original system (HFDFC system), the composite food intakes used total weight to estimate the hazard index (HI) of cadmium in the exposure risk assessment, but the percentage of rice was not 100%. The proposed TFR system estimates the percentage of rice and actual intakes in composite foods. Fried rice, sushi, and rice balls in the study were the most common foods containing rice and had higher consumption rates among Taiwan’s rice-based composite foods. The HIs of fried rice, sushi, and rice balls were 0.09, 0.10, and 0.13, respectively, in the HFDFC system. In the TFR system, the HIs of rice in fried rice, sushi, and rice balls were 0.06, 0.04 and 0.05, respectively. The HI of other components in fried rice, sushi, and rice balls were 0.03, 0.06 and 0.08, respectively. More precise HIs were thus shown. The TFR system contributes to global food classification and description systems by providing an appropriate, standardized, and generalized framework for exposure assessments.