Ochratoxin A: Contamination of foods and consumer exposure - General introduction

Moulds which may occur both in animal feeds and foods are able to produce, under various conditions, toxic substances (mycotoxins), the most important of which are aflatoxins and ochratoxin A. Acute poisoning of humans and an imals by the intake of mycotoxins is rare and does not play a role in every -day life. Although the data available at present do not give rise to conce rn, it cannot be excluded that certain mycotoxins ingested in minor quantit ies with our daily diet for an extended period may pose a risk to human hea lth. On the basis of the toxicological properties of ochratoxin A (OTA), th e EU Scientific Committee for Food has come to the conclusion that the dail y OTA intake by the consumer should be below 5 ng/kg body weight (= PTDI, p rovisional tolerable daily intake). In order to comply with the legal requirement of ensuring a comprehensive c onsumer protection by appropriate measures such as the fixing of maximum li mits, the German Federal Ministry for Health has initiated a study aimed to determine the exposure of the consumer to and the contamination of foods w ith ochratoxin A. This study was conducted by 7 scientific institutions (se e below). Within a period of 2.5 years, almost 7000 food samples and blood samples from more than 1000 test persons were examined for ochratoxin A. In the same period, the nutritional and consumption habits of more than 2500 persons were recorded by trained interviewers using questionnaires elaborat ed by nutrional scientists. With the help of these data, OTA exposure of re presentative consumer collectives such as vegetarians, infants and adolesce nts as well as low-level, normal and high-level consumers could be establis hed and compared with OTA concentrations of the blood sera analyzed.