Occurrence of aflatoxin M1 in commercial powdered milk in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

The contamination of milk with aflatoxin M 1 (AFM 1 ), a possible carcinogen to humans, is a serious problem. In Thailand, there are few reports on AFM 1 contamination in powdered milk. In this study, we investigated the occurrence of AFM 1 in 79 commercial powdered milk products in Bangkok, Thailand over five years (2010–2014). An in-house immunoaffinity column-HPLC (IAC-HPLC) method was developed. Reconstituted powdered milk (10 mL) was applied to our IAC. The recoveries from 0.005–0.15 ng/mL AFM 1 spiked reconstituted milk were 73.6–86.3% with 5.2–7.4% of RSD. Twelve samples (15%) were contaminated with 0.005–0.135 ng/mL of AFM 1 (aver-age 0.024 ng/mL, overall average 0.004 ng/mL) in reconstituted powdered milk. Our data indicated that the risk of AFM 1 in commercial powdered milk in Bangkok, Thailand was sufficiently low.