Determination of acrylamide in food using a UPLC–MS/MS method: results of the official control and dietary exposure assessment in Cyprus

Abstract

The determination of acrylamide in potato products, bakery products and coffee, and the human dietary exposure is reported. The method reported is based on a single extraction step with water, followed by the clean-up of the extract using solid phase extraction columns and finally, the determination of acrylamide using UPLC-MS/MS. The MS/MS detection was carried out using an ESI interface in positive ion mode. Internal calibration was used for the quantification of acrylamide, because of the suppression/enhancement matrix effects due to the complex nature of the samples. The method performance characteristics were determined after spiking blank samples. The mean recoveries in spiked coffee samples, potato chips, breakfast cereals and crispbread ranged from 93% to 99%, with RSDs lower than 5% for both repeatability and reproducibility conditions. The estimated limits of detection and quantification of the method were 10 and 32 μg kg, respectively. The method was used for monitoring acrylamide in 406 samples. Acrylamide amounts ranged from <32 to 2450 μg kg. A total of 360 samples (89%) were contaminated with acrylamide, but only 14% of the samples exceeded the benchmark levels of the EU legislation. Foods with the highest mean acrylamide amounts were potato crisps (642 μg kg), French fries (383 μg kg) and biscuits (353 μg kg). The mean and 95th percentile acrylamide exposures of adolescents in Cyprus were 0.8 and 1.8 μg kg body weight per day, respectively. The estimated levels of dietary exposure to acrylamide are not of concern with respect to neurotoxicity. However, the margins of exposure (MOEs) indicate a concern for carcinogenicity. Potato fried products (45%), fine bakery ware (21%) and potato chips (14%) contributed the most to overall acrylamide exposure.

How Far is the Spanish Snack Sector from Meeting the Acrylamide Regulation 2017/2158?

“…The average value was similar to the median reported in adults from Italy [19], higher than mean exposure in adults from Belgium [25] and much lower than in the general population from Denmark [26]. Adolescents generally present greater exposure [18,19,25], except those from Poland [27], with median values being close to the mean described in the present study. In contrast, elderly and very elderly populations have shown lower acrylamide exposure due to lower consumption of potato crisps [19].…”

“…However, results were in line with information provided by other authors in recent years. Hai et al [17] found levels ranging from 25 to 1620 µg/kg in potato chips from Hanoi (Vietnam), whilst Kafouris et al [18] described an average value of 642 µg/kg in potato crisps from Cyprus (10-2193 µg/kg). Higher concentrations have been reported in potato crisps from Italy (173-3444 µg/kg, average value: 1162 µg/kg) [19] and lower value (mean value 475 µg/kg) have been described for potato crisps collected from several Portuguese local markets [20].…”

UPLC-MS: An Emerging Novel Technology and Its Application in Food Safety

“…Consequently, fragmentation of molecular mass in MS make it principally a very important technique over any other traditional chromatographic techniques. Notwithstanding that, on account of the capacity of MS to create m/z proportion, it considered as an exceptionally novel, straightforward, sensitive, accurate, and particular for the quantitative investigation of any mixture or blend [20,21].…”

“…• Quantification of pesticides residues in food [24][25][26] • Amino acid profiling [9,27] • Multi-drug residue quantitation in food matrix [28] • Metabolomics study in food safety [9] • Analysis of food contaminants in food matrices • Analysis of natural medicine and herbal medicine [9] • Determination of acrylamide in food matrix [29] • Analysis of mycotoxin in food [30,31] • Determination of bromate in drinking water [32] • Pesticide in fruit and vegetables [33] • Determination of food-borne carcinogens heterocyclic amines [34] • Capsaicinoids analysis in capsicum species [35] • Analysis of vitamin in food…”

Determination of acrylamide in foods by automatic accelerated solvent extraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

“…At present, the determination methods of acrylamide in food mainly include gas chromatography (GC) [14][15][16], gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) [17][18][19], high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) [20][21][22] and high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) [23][24][25]. GC and HPLC are relatively inexpensive and ubiquitous in research laboratory and testing institution, however, the sensitivity and accuracy of these two methods are relatively low, the results of this experiment are susceptible to impurities and matrix effects, and stability and repeatability are relatively poor.…”