Chan H M
Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition, McGill University, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec, Canada.
Food Addit Contam. 1998 Feb-Mar;15(2):127-34. doi: 10.1080/02652039809374621.
The potential health effects of environmental contaminants in traditional food has become a concern among northern communities because of the presence of environmental contaminants in the Arctic ecosystem. Exposure assessments are needed but they require comprehensive dietary information and contaminant data. Over the last 10 years, there has been considerable effort to monitor the level of contaminants in fish and wildlife collected from different regions in northern and Arctic Canada. The development of a database and its application for dietary contaminant exposure assessment are described. We conducted an extensive literature review on levels of environmental contaminants in northern and Arctic Canada. The ranges of levels of four contaminants of major concern (chlordane, mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls and toxaphene) in 81 species of marine mammals, terrestrial mammals, birds, fish and plants are summarized. These data represent 69% of the 117 species of fish, wildlife and plants mentioned in our dietary interviews conducted in the northern communities. A significant percentage of the foods had contaminant levels exceeding the guidelines used by Health Canada for market food consumed by the 'southern' populations. Mathematic modelling of the distributions of the data showed that contaminant levels in most food groups are log-normally distributed and have a typical coefficient of variation of about 100%. Examples are presented to demonstrate the use of the data for contaminant exposure assessment. Average contaminant exposure levels estimated using the database for two communities are comparable to those obtained previously using community specific data. With the current knowledge of environmental contaminant levels in the northern traditional food system, it may be feasible to conduct preliminary risk assessment of dietary exposure of environmental contaminants when some diet information for a community is available. Further sampling and analysis may be needed only for confirmation purposes.
由于北极生态系统中存在环境污染物，传统食物中的环境污染物对健康的潜在影响已成为北方社区关注的问题。需要进行暴露评估，但这需要全面的饮食信息和污染物数据。在过去10年里，人们付出了巨大努力来监测从加拿大北部和北极不同地区采集的鱼类和野生动物中的污染物水平。本文描述了一个数据库的开发及其在饮食污染物暴露评估中的应用。我们对加拿大北部和北极地区环境污染物水平进行了广泛的文献综述。总结了81种海洋哺乳动物、陆地哺乳动物、鸟类、鱼类和植物中四种主要关注污染物（氯丹、汞、多氯联苯和毒杀芬）的水平范围。这些数据占我们在北方社区进行的饮食访谈中提到的117种鱼类、野生动物和植物的69%。相当比例的食物中污染物水平超过了加拿大卫生部针对“南方”人群消费的市场食品所使用的指导标准。数据分布的数学模型表明，大多数食物组中的污染物水平呈对数正态分布，典型变异系数约为100%。文中给出了示例来说明这些数据在污染物暴露评估中的应用。使用该数据库估算的两个社区的平均污染物暴露水平与之前使用特定社区数据获得的结果相当。基于目前对北方传统食物系统中环境污染物水平的了解，当获得某个社区的一些饮食信息时，对环境污染物的饮食暴露进行初步风险评估可能是可行的。可能仅需进一步采样和分析以作确认。
