Occurrence of ochratoxins in coffee and risk assessment of ochratoxin a in a Costa Rican urban population.

Abstract

Costa Rica is a coffee producer and consumer country, but this product is prone to ochratoxin contamination; therefore, this study aims evaluates the human health risk associated with ochratoxin exposure among coffee consumers in the Costa Rica. Ochratoxin A (OTA) is a nephrotoxic compound classified as a Group 2B carcinogen, produced by the fungi Aspergillus section Circumdati, Aspergillus section Nigri and Penicillium spp.  The presence of OTA and ochratoxin B (OTB) in Costa Rican coffee products (n = 175) was determined by HPLC with fluorescence detection. OTA was detected in 58.2% of the green coffee beans (1.01 ± 0.85 ng g ^-1), in 36.8% of the pure roasted coffee (2.59 ± 4.41 ng g ^-1), in 23.1% of the sugar-added roasted coffee (1.59 ± 0.33 ng g^-1) and 75% of the instant coffee samples (0.69 ± 0.58 ng g^-1). The contamination with OTB was 45.5% (1.28 ± 0.83 ng g ^-1), 31.6% (1.60 ± 2.04 ng g ^-1), 30.8% (1.42 ± 0.86 ng g ^-1), and 41.7% (2.64 ± 2.07 ng g ^-1), respectively. The dietary exposure to OTA of the Costa Rican population was assessed by a probabilistic approach. The mean estimated daily intake (EDI) of OTA from coffee was: 0.184 (90% IC: 0.179-0.189) ng kg^-1 bw day^-1 for the total population (0.189 [90% IC: 0.184-0.194] ng kg^-1 bw day^-1 for males and 0.181 [90% IC: 0.176-0.186] ng kg^-1 bw day^-1 for females).  The EDIs were lower than the tolerable human intake benchmarks for OTA set by international food safety authorities (even though more than 80% of OTA is extracted during coffee preparation). The results evidence a low risk (related to ochratoxin) for coffee consumers in Costa Rica.