Aflatoxins Contamination of Human Food Commodities Collected from Jeddah Markets, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Aflatoxins (AFs) are fungal secondary metabolites produced by Aspergillus flavus. They contaminate of dietary food with AFs is a worldwide problem that affects both food safety and agricultural economies.
 AIM: The aim of this study was designed to investigate the AFs contents of human food commodities mostly consumed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
 METHODS: The study was designed in vitro, contents in six food categories. A total of 288 samples were collected from 78 different markets in Jeddah. AFs were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detector using immunoaffinity column clean-up.
 RESULTS: The results indicated that the incidence rate 27.3% of nut samples collected from Jeddah, were contaminated with AFB1, AFB2. The concentrations of AFs (AFB1, AFB2, AFG1, and AFG2) were ranged from 0.19–482.4, 0.09–3.34, 0.19–87.1, to 0.09–579 μg/kg in the nut samples.
 CONCLUSION: The results demonstrate the importance of routine monitoring of AFs contamination in various dry foods for human consumed should be performed regularly and the nuts contained high levels of AFs. The legal regulations must be unauthorized for human consumption to control the health risks associated with AFs.

Aflatoxins in food products consumed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: A preliminary dietary risk assessment

“…This could be due to the fact that all samples in their study were taken from the western region, which is known for its high temperature and humid weather most seasons of the year. Furthermore, El Tawila et al (El Tawila et al, 2020) found that 27.3% and 20% of nut samples (n = 99) were contaminated with AFB 1 , AFB 2 , AFG 1 , and AFG 2 , respectively, which was much higher than the percentages of positive samples in our study (14%). The variations in concentrations between the two studies could be due to the nut moisture content, soil properties, and poor storage conditions, resulting in fungal growth.…”

“…Varying levels of AFs have been reported for many food products consumed in the KSA. Commodities of the most commonly consumed food items such as cereals and grain products, nuts and seeds, legumes, coffee, baked goods, and spices have been reported to contain AFs (Abdullah AlFaris et al, 2020 ; Bokhari, 2001 ; El Tawila et al, 2020 ; Serdar et al, 2020 ). The Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) has established an annual National Food Monitoring Program (NFMP) to measure contaminant levels in food and check compliance with established MLs.…”

Mycotoxin contamination in the Arab World: highlighting the main knowledge gaps and the current legislations.

“…AFs levels in edible animal products and fishes from Egypt (Mohamed et al 2017;Hamad et al 2021) and in several meat types collected from Saudi Arabia (Elzupir and Abdulkhair 2020) and in egg and meat samples from Jordan were determined by HPLC-FLD (Herzallah 2009). Cereals (wheat, corn, rice, oats, and sorghum) and cereal products (corn based snacks and others) from Algeria (Riba et al 2010), Egypt (Madbouly et al 2012;Deabes et al 2018;Hathout et al 2020), Jordan (Omar et al 2020), Lebanon (Joubrane et al 2011(Joubrane et al , 2020, Morocco (Zinedine et al 2007b), Palestine (Ahmed et al 2015), Qatar (Abdulkadar et al 2002(Abdulkadar et al , 2004, Saudi Arabia (Elzupir et al 2018;El Tawila et al 2020), Sudan (Elbashir and Ali 2014) and Tunisia (Ghali et al 2009(Ghali et al , 2010Jedidi et al 2017) were documented to be contaminated with AFs.…”

Removal of aflatoxin b1 and t-2 toxin by bacteria isolated from commercially available probiotic dairy foods

“…To date, the aflatoxin contamination in food commodities is still a global problem (Asghar et al., 2020; El Tawila et al., 2020; Wenndt et al., 2020). Various physical, chemical and biological approaches have been investigated for reducing mycotoxins in the food chain.…”