Akbari Nader, Shafaroodi Hamed, Jahanbakhsh Mahdi, Sabah Samireh, Molaee-Aghaee Ebrahim, Sadighara Parisa
Department of Environmental Health, Food Safety Division, Faculty of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Food Chem X. 2023 Jun 7;18:100739. doi: 10.1016/j.fochx.2023.100739. eCollection 2023 Jun 30.
4-methylimidazole (4-MEI) is widely used industrially. This carcinogenic component has been reported in some types of food. It is usually produced by the caramelization process in food, drinks and caramel coloring. The possible mechanism for the formation of this compound in food is the Maillard reaction. In order to estimate the amount of substance 4-MEI in food, a systematic study was conducted. The selected keywords were 4-methylimidazole, 4-MEI, beverage, drink, meat, milk, and coffee. 144 articles were obtained from the initial search. The articles were evaluated and finally, the data of 15 manuscripts were extracted. Based on the data extracted from selected articles, the highest amount is reported in caramel color, coffee, and cola drinks. In 70% of the selected studies, the analytical method was based on liquid chromatography. In this method, there is no need for derivatization. SPE columns were used to extract samples in most manuscripts. According to per capita consumption, the most exposure to 4-MEI is through coffee. In high risk food products, regular monitoring with analytical methods with high sensitivity is recommended. Furthermore, most of the selected studies were about the validation method, so few samples were selected. It is recommended to design more studies with a high sample size to accurately evaluate this carcinogenic compound in food.
4-甲基咪唑（4-MEI）在工业上有广泛应用。这种致癌成分已在某些类型的食品中被报道。它通常是由食品、饮料和焦糖色素中的焦糖化过程产生的。食品中该化合物形成的可能机制是美拉德反应。为了估算食品中4-MEI的含量，进行了一项系统研究。选定的关键词为4-甲基咪唑、4-MEI、饮料、饮品、肉类、牛奶和咖啡。初步检索获得了144篇文章。对这些文章进行了评估，最终提取了15篇手稿的数据。根据从选定文章中提取的数据，焦糖色素、咖啡和可乐饮料中的含量最高。在70%的选定研究中，分析方法基于液相色谱法。在这种方法中，无需衍生化。大多数手稿中使用固相萃取柱来提取样品。根据人均消费量，接触4-MEI最多的途径是通过咖啡。对于高风险食品，建议使用高灵敏度分析方法进行定期监测。此外，大多数选定研究是关于验证方法的，所以所选样品很少。建议设计更多具有高样本量的研究，以准确评估食品中的这种致癌化合物。
