Monitoring of POPs in food and its risk analysis

Jongsei Park, Youn-Seok Kang, Shinai Choi
LabFrontier, Co., Ltd.
KSBC bldg. #Mt. 111-8, Iui-dong, Paldal-ku, Suwon, Kyounggi-do 442-270, KOREA.

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) as PCDD/Fs and PCBs have spread throughout the global environment to threaten human health and damage ecosystems. These compounds are concentrated through the food chain and are present in human milk.
Breast milk is an ideal medium for assessing exposures to POPs. POPs enter humans largely as contaminants of dietary animal products, where they sequester in adipose tissue, serum, and breast milk and equilibrate at similar levels on a fat weight basis. With long (5-10 year) half-lives, POPs persist in humans and in breast milk as they do in the environment. Breast milk mimics sediments of rivers or lakes as a storage reservoir for POPs, serves as an indicator of past human exposures or environmental conditions, and complements environmental monitoring data in air, water, soil, and food.(Hooper K. et al., 1999)
This study conducted to monitor on level of PCDD/Fs and Co-PCBs in human breast milk and to assess the infant health risk its exposure based on guidelines for carcinogenic risk assessment proposed by U.S.EPA.
Dioxin and related compounds are structurally related and elicit their effects through a common mode of action. EPA in its revised proposed guidelines for carcinogenic risk assessment recommends the use of a structured approach to evaluating mode of action.