Concentrations of Selected Chemical Elements in Sheep‘s Milk and Sheep‘s Milk Products with Estimated Intake of Selected Elements
Keywords:
sheep milk, environmental burden, essential elements, toxic elements, risk assessmentAbstract
The aim of this study was to determine the concentrations of 10 elements – essential calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), iron (Fe) and toxic arsenic (As), nickel (Ni), antimony (Sb), strontium (Sr) and lithium (Li) in samples of milk and milk products from two farms located in regions with different environmental loads. The samples were analyzed using the inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometry method. In the case of sheep‘s milk, we recorded statistically significant differences in the concentration of Mg, Fe (P <0,01). In the case of the toxic elements As and Ni, we noted a slight exceedance of the highest permissible limits set by legislation. The estimation of the risk of consumption of monitored elements revealed that the share of intake of most elements through dairy products was below 1%. However, higher values from the preliminary tolerable daily intake (PTWI) were found in the case of As with values up to 15% and in the case of a share of the tolerable daily intake (TDI) for the monitored element Sr up to 35%. The results show that the monitored dairy products can be a good source of essential elements, but it is necessary to increase their consumption in the Slovak population. Despite the low values of toxic elements, further rigorous monitoring is needed, especially of As and Sr, which may pose a certain risk to the health of the Slovak population with long-term intake.
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