Abstract:
Aflatoxins are fungi’s secondary toxigenic metabolites and known as potent hepatocarcinogen for humans. The purpose of the present study is to assess health risk for Turkish adult population posing by dried fig consumption due to the aflatoxin contamination. In order to make this evaluation total of 23.547 aflatoxin monitoring data of dried figs from the Turkish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock between the crop years of 2011/2012-2015/2016 in Turkey were used. Intakes were estimated using consumption data and aflatoxin concentrations and expressed using the average Turkish adults’ body weight (72.8 kg). Estimated daily exposure was found 0.005 ng/kg bw/day for aflatoxin B1, 0.009 for total aflatoxins in a worst case scenario. The calculated margin of exposure (MOE) was higher than the 10.000. Cancer risk in Turkish adult population observed in the range between 0.00017 to 0.00030 cancers per 100,000 people per year. Calculated MOE and population risk according to estimated daily intake revealed that Turkish adult population are not under the toxicological risk through dried fig consumption.