Department of Food Safety and Food Quality, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium.
Chemosphere. 2012 Aug;88(8):1001-7. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2012.03.044. Epub 2012 Apr 5.
Benzene is a volatile organic compound known to be carcinogenic to humans (Group 1) and may be present in food. In the present study, 455 food samples from the Belgian market were analyzed for benzene contents and some possible sources of its occurrence in the foodstuffs were evaluated. Benzene was found above the level of detection in 58% of analyzed samples with the highest contents found in processed foods such as smoked and canned fish, and foods which contained these as ingredients (up to 76.21 μg kg(-1)). Unprocessed foods such as raw meat, fish, and eggs contained much lower concentrations of benzene. Using the benzene concentrations in food, a quantitative dietary exposure assessment of benzene intake was conducted on a national representative sample of the Belgian population over 15 years of age. The mean benzene intake for all foods was 0.020 μg kg bw d(-1) according to a probabilistic analysis. These values are below the minimum risk level for oral chronic exposure to benzene (0.5 μg kg bw d(-1)).
苯是一种挥发性有机化合物，已知对人类具有致癌性（第 1 组），并且可能存在于食物中。在本研究中，对来自比利时市场的 455 个食品样本进行了苯含量分析，并评估了其在食品中存在的一些可能来源。在分析的样本中，有 58%的样本中检测到了苯，其含量最高的是熏制和罐装鱼类以及含有这些成分的加工食品（高达 76.21μg/kg）。未加工的食品，如生肉、鱼和鸡蛋，苯的浓度要低得多。利用食品中的苯浓度，对 15 岁以上的比利时人口进行了全国代表性样本的苯摄入定量膳食暴露评估。根据概率分析，所有食品的平均苯摄入量为 0.020μg/kg bw d(-1)。这些值低于口服慢性苯暴露的最低风险水平（0.5μg/kg bw d(-1)）。
