Occurrence and health risk assessment of antimony, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, nickel, and lead in fresh fruits consumed in South Korea

Although various fruits are consumed as fresh produce in South Korea, information on the concentrations of heavy metals in such fruits remains lacking despite the known toxic effects of the metals. Moreover, the health risks posed by seven potentially toxic metals (As, Ba, Cd, Cr, Ni, Pb, and Sb) ingested through fruit consumption have not been assessed using recent dietary data and occurrence data. Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry was used to quantify these metals in 207 samples of fresh fruits mainly consumed in South Korea. The mean concentrations (mg kg⁻¹ fresh weight) of the metals in all fruit samples were as follows: As < 0.0021, Ba 0.3675, Cd < 0.0022, Cr 0.0307, Ni 0.0815, Pb 0.0236, and Sb < 0.0021. Only Ba showed a significant negative correlation with Pb (ρ =  −0.5385) in the studied fruits at the 95% confidence level. The non-carcinogenic risk of the seven metals in terms of hazard quotients was Pb (0.0149) > As (0.0086) > Ni (0.0081) > Sb (0.0080) > Ba (0.0031) > Cd (0.0027) > Cr (0.0001), and the hazard index, which is the sum of the hazard quotients, was 0.0275 (less than 1). The carcinogenic risks of As and Pb were 4.62E − 07 and 5.05E − 07, respectively (below 1E − 04). The hazard index of seven metals and carcinogenic risks of As and Pb indicated that no health risks were associated with fruit consumption in the Korean population. However, the hazard quotient and carcinogenic risk of Pb in apples were the highest for children aged 1–2 years, indicating that continuous targeted risk monitoring in this age group is required.