The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has issued a warning that cancer-causing chemical compounds called nitrosamines have been detected in various everyday foods, particularly in meat, and could pose a health risk to consumers.
EWN reports that the 10 nitrosamines, which are not intentionally added to food but which can form during its preparation and processing, are carcinogenic and also genotoxic, meaning they may damage DNA, according to the study conducted by the European Union agency.
“Our assessment concludes that for all age groups across the EU population, the level of exposure to nitrosamines in food raises a health concern,” said Dieter Schrenk, chair of the EFSA’s panel on contaminants in the food chain.
“Based on animal studies, we considered the incidence of liver tumours in rodents as the most critical health effect,” he added.
Nitrosamines have been detected in foods including cured meat, processed fish, cocoa, beer and other alcoholic drinks, the EFSA said.
Meat was “the most important food group” contributing to nitrosamines exposure.
Schrenk said the research deployed “a worst-case scenario”, assuming that all nitrosamines detected in food had the potential to cause cancer as the most harmful form of the compound, “although that is unlikely”.
The EFSA added that there were knowledge gaps about the presence of nitrosamines in some food groups, and advised a balanced diet with a variety of foods to reduce consumption of nitrosamines.
The EFSA’s findings will be shared with the European Commission – the EU’s executive arm – which will, in turn, discuss potential risk management measures with nations in the 27-member bloc.
Study details
Risk assessment of N-nitrosamines in food
EFSA Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (EFSA CONTAM Panel), Dieter Schrenk, Margherita Bignami, Laurent Bodin, James Kevin Chipman, Jesús del Mazo et al.
Published in European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Journal on 28 March 2023
Abstract
EFSA was asked for a scientific opinion on the risks to public health related to the presence of N‐nitrosamines (N‐NAs) in food. The risk assessment was confined to those 10 carcinogenic N‐NAs occurring in food (TCNAs), i.e. NDMA, NMEA, NDEA, NDPA, NDBA, NMA, NSAR, NMOR, NPIP and NPYR.
N‐NAs are genotoxic and induce liver tumours in rodents. The in vivo data available to derive potency factors are limited, and therefore, equal potency of TCNAs was assumed. The lower confidence limit of the benchmark dose at 10% (BMDL10) was 10 μg/kg body weight (bw) per day, derived from the incidence of rat liver tumours (benign and malignant) induced by NDEA and used in a margin of exposure (MOE) approach. Analytical results on the occurrence of N‐NAs were extracted from the EFSA occurrence database (n = 2,817) and the literature (n = 4,003). Occurrence data were available for five food categories across TCNAs. Dietary exposure was assessed for two scenarios, excluding (scenario 1) and including (scenario 2) cooked unprocessed meat and fish. TCNAs exposure ranged from 0 to 208.9 ng/kg bw per day across surveys, age groups and scenarios.
‘Meat and meat products’ is the main food category contributing to TCNA exposure. MOEs ranged from 3,337 to 48 at the P95 exposure excluding some infant surveys with P95 exposure equal to zero. Two major uncertainties were (i) the high number of left censored data and (ii) the lack of data on important food categories.
The CONTAM Panel concluded that the MOE for TCNAs at the P95 exposure is highly likely (98%–100% certain) to be less than 10 000 for all age groups, which raises a health concern.
EFSA Journal article – Risk assessment of N-nitrosamines in food (Open access)
EWN article – Cancer-causing compounds found in everyday food: EU agency (Open access)
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