Furan in heat‐treated foods: Formation, exposure, toxicity, and aspects of risk assessment

Abstract

Furan is formed in a variety of heat-treated foods through thermal degradation of natural food constituents. Relatively high levels of furan contamination are found in ground roasted coffee, instant coffee, and processed baby foods. European exposure estimates suggest that mean dietary exposure to furan may be as high as 1.23 and 1.01 μg/kg bw/day for adults and 3- to 12-month-old infants, respectively. Furan is a potent hepatotoxin and hepatocarcinogen in rodents, causing hepatocellular adenomas and carcinomas in rats and mice, and high incidences of cholangiocarcinomas in rats at doses ≥ 2 mg/kg bw. There is therefore a relatively low margin of exposure between estimated human exposure and doses that cause a high tumor incidence in rodents. Since a genotoxic mode of action cannot be excluded for furan-induced tumor formation, the present exposures may indicate a risk to human health and need for mitigation. This review summarizes the current knowledge on mechanisms of furan formation in food, human dietary exposure to furan, and furan toxicity, and highlights the need to establish the risk resulting from the genotoxic and carcinogenic properties of furan at doses lower than 2 mg/kg bw.

Organic Solvent Effects in Biomass Conversion Reactions

“…Methanol is harmful to vision and continuous exposure can cause blindness . Furan‐based products were claimed to be carcinogenic because they have been linked to the formation of tumors after their continuous feeding to mice . DMSO was demonstrated to induce retinal apoptosis in vivo at low concentrations (5 μL intravitreally dosed DMSO in rat from a stock concentration of 1, 2, 4, and 8 % v / v ) .…”

Interactions of protons with furan molecules studied by collision-induced emission spectroscopy at the incident energy range of 50–1000 eV

“…1) may be regarded to be a building unit in the vitamin B12, biotin [8], conducting polymers [9] and the simple sugars ribose and deoxyribose (dR), the backbone molecules of the RNA and the DNA helix. Moreover, furan and its derivatives play an important role in combustion chemistry, as second-generation biofuels [10,11] or in food and nutrition engineering as a product of thermal degradation of a heat-treated commercial foods [12,13].…”

Abundant Rodent Furan-Derived Urinary Metabolites Are Associated with Tobacco Smoke Exposure in Humans

“…8,9 The contribution of canned and processed foods to furan exposure is estimated to be 0.3 μg/kg/day. 10,11 Smokers may be exposed to much larger amounts of furan than non-smokers since cigarette smoke contains significant levels of furan (20 – 40 μg/cigarette, depending on the method of analysis). 12–14 Therefore, furan could be a significant contributor to the adverse health effects associated with tobacco smoke.…”