Bioavailability and bioaccessibility of pesticides and legacy pollutants in food: a public health risk assessment and creation of a risk-benefit tool for Brazilian consumers

Abstract

Over the years, the potential increase in industrialization, agriculture, and animal production has occurred to meet the growing demand for food due to the population size increases in the world. However, this increase generally is not associated with providing consumers with food free from pollutants. In Brazil, agriculture is an economic pillar that has experienced exponential growth in recent years. Pesticides, such as glyphosate, 2,4-D, and atrazine, constitute an important factor for the viability of this great agricultural productivity; however, they make the country one of the world's largest pesticide consumers. Pesticide residues and legacy environmental pollutants, like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are often detected in food, and they are of concern for both human and environmental health. Pesticides are routinely applied to plants to control pests and to improve crop yields. Meanwhile, food processing may contaminate PAHs, which are produced by the incomplete combustion of organic material, and PFAS are ubiquitous in everyday life since they are widely used in food packaging and water-repellent products like "Teflon." In this sense, the adoption of programs for the systematic evaluation of the chemical composition of food that makes up the basic diet of a given population is of fundamental importance to ensure food security. Worldwide, developing toxicological reference values in food is an area of ongoing scientific research. However, in Brazil, this data is scarce. Human exposure to these chemicals reflects the combined exposure through several pathways. Many studies have shown that oral ingestion is an important pathway for many organic pollutants. However, most studies that evaluate human exposure to pollutants through oral ingestion did not consider the complex absorption processes in the gastrointestinal tract, absolute bioavailability, or relative bioavailability. Therefore, omitting the absorption factor would overestimate human exposure and the associated health risks. In this context, both bioavailability and bioaccessibility assessments aim to provide a more realistic health risk assessment by measuring the portion of a certain substance released from food through digestion. After that, it is possible to estimate the daily intake of pollutants ingested by the populations. Through these results, public health authorities can guide food industries in developing new products and support policies to protect the environment and biodiversity. According to this, the present proposal's main objective is to determine the pesticide, PAH, and PFAS levels in food in Brazil's five regions and assess the human bioavailability and bioaccessibility of these organic pollutants through in vivo and in vitro approaches. Furthermore, the estimated exposure doses of those chemicals by Brazilians through food ingestion and the risk assessment of these exposures will be calculated. The present study intends to meet a need in Brazil to guarantee the food safety of our population through extensive knowledge of the quality of the food consumed concerning environmental pollutants, as well as to provide subsidies for future public health programs in the toxicological scope. (AU)