The Scottish food industry is a major component of the nation’s economy, and it is important to ensure that produce is grown, packaged and stored following the policies formulated by Food Standards Scotland. A key goal of the food and agriculture industry is to improve food safety by avoiding contamination and toxicity, by following the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) guidelines. These food contaminants include heavy metals, agrochemicals, pathogens and toxins. Mycotoxins are produced by fungi that can grow on various crops and cereals, and levels are largely driven by weather and storage conditions. The occurrence of these toxins in food products can cause damage to kidney and liver function and in some cases cancer. Children, still being in their developmental stages of growth, may not be able to clear these toxins from their bodies as effectively as adults, with resulting greater risk of medical complications. 

BioSS staff collaborated with Dr. Silvia Gratz from the Rowett Institute to study the levels of various mycotoxins present over 4 days in the urine of 29 children from the UK, aged between 2-6 years, and the association of these mycotoxins with the consumption of various food groups over the same time-period. The different mycotoxins that were measured included zearalenone (ZEN), type B trichothecenes deoxynivalenol (DON), nivalenol (NIV), type A trichothecenes T-2 and HT-2 toxins (T-2/HT-2), ochratoxin A (OTA) and aflatoxin B1 (AFB1). The food groups tested, selected based on where different fungi are known to grow, included cereal foods, wholegrain foods, wholegrain and high fibre breakfast cereals, bread, oats and cheese, pork and fruits. 

We examined associations using linear mixed models where the explanatory variables were constructed from dietary intakes over four different sets of time intervals. Constructing these models was complicated by the partly missing data for some intervals, arising from the variable overlap between diet and mycotoxin recording, as well as variability in intervals between urine samples. The models linked mycotoxin levels to food intake on the same day, or the day before the urine sample, or the average of these two days, or the average over three days (same day, one day prior and two days prior to urine sampling). 

We found significant positive associations between mean levels of the DON, NIV, T-2/HT-2 and OTA mycotoxins and total cereal food intake for some of the models defined above. We also noted a significant positive association between mean DON and T-2/HT-2 levels and the recorded total consumption of wholegrain products, and a significant association between levels of T-2/HT-2, NIV and OTA excretion and intake of oats across some of the models. 

We conclude that mycotoxins are still present in some of the foods we consume daily as part of the British diet, and, as they are known to potentially cause serious health problems, levels of mycotoxins in these food groups need to be monitored and controlled. 

The associated publication is available to read at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11209425/, 

Further information can be found at: Evaluation and mitigation of mycotoxin contamination across the Scottish cereal supply chain to assess human exposure and inform risk analysis | SEFARI

This research was funded by the Scottish Government Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS) under Project RI-B5-01 "Evaluation and mitigation of mycotoxin contamination across the Scottish cereal supply chain to assess human exposure and inform risk analysis."