Health risk assessment of heavy metals in nuts and seeds in Gansu Province, China

The popularity of nuts is growing, due to their nutritional properties and beneficial effects on human health. So they may be a source of exposure to heavy metals. To evaluate the health risks of consuming nuts to residents in Gansu Province, this study used ICP-MS to determine the Cd, Pb and Hg content in 151 nuts samples and conducted risk assessment by deterministic and probabilistic methods. The results showed that the median contents of Cd, Pb and Hg in nuts were 7.40E-3, 5.80E-2 and 9.00E-4 mg·kg⁻¹, while in seeds were 3.89E-2, 4.47E-2 and 1.10E-3 mg·kg⁻¹. Cd exceeded the Chinese maximum residue limits in 9.93 % (15/151) of the samples. At the P95 exposure level, the deterministic assessment showed that hazard quotients (HQs) of Hg, Cd, and Pb were below 1, hazard index (HI) was also below 1, cancer risk (CR) of Cd in nuts was below 10⁻⁴, but CR of Cd in seeds was above 10⁻⁴. In probability assessment, the HQs of Cd, Pb and Hg were less than 1, but the CR of Cd is greater than 10⁻⁴. In summary, Hg and Pb in nuts and seeds did not pose a health risk, but Cd may pose a carcinogenic risk to consumers.