Are breakfast cereals safe to consumption by children? A preliminary exposure assessment approach

In human health risk assessment, ingestion of food is considered a major route of exposure to mycotoxins, metabolites that cause toxic outcomes in humans and infants are a particularly vulnerable population group. This study aims to characterize the risk associated with the consumption of breakfast cereals (BC) concerning the exposure of Portuguese children to mycotoxins. Portuguese children (< 3 years old, n=103) food consumption data of BC were obtained using a 3 days food diary in a pilot study performed at a Primary Health Care Unit. Fourteen BC samples were purchased from supermarkets in Lisbon region and the occurrence of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) and ochratoxin A (OTA) were detected according to EN15851, with slight modifications, followed by HPLC-FLD analysis. Daily exposure of children to mycotoxins was performed using deterministic and probabilistic approaches. Different strategies had been considered to treat the left censored data. The output of exposure was compared with dose reference values. The analytical method showed a good performance with LOD of 0.003 and 0.006 µg.kg-1, LOQ of 0.009 and 0.019 µg.kg-1 and recoveries of 73 and 71 %, for AFB1 and OTA, respectively. Approximately 71% and 86% of BC samples were contaminated with AFB1 and OTA, respectively. Approximately 23 % of the studied children consumed BC at least one time in these 3 days. Both approaches showed that children exposure to single mycotoxins present in BC were well below the dose reference values. This study concerns the first risk assessment of Portuguese children to single mycotoxins in BC.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT