Evaluation of Statistical Treatment of Left-Censored Contamination Data: Example Involving Deoxynivalenol Occurrence in Pasta and Pasta Substitute Products.

The handling of data on food contamination frequently represents a challenge because these are often left-censored, being composed of both positive and non-detected values. The latter observations are not quantified and provide only the information that they are below a laboratory-specific threshold value. Besides deterministic approaches, which simplify the treatment through the substitution of non-detected values with fixed threshold or null values, a growing interest has been shown in the application of stochastic approaches to the treatment of unquantified values.

Overall Exposure of European Adult Population to Mycotoxins by Statistically Modelled Biomonitoring Data.

This study presents the exposure scenario to mycotoxins of adult population throughout Europe. The urinary biomarkers values were obtained by modelling data from two European projects. Exposure to AFB1, OTA, CIT, FBs, DON, NIV and T2/HT2 are presented.

Biomonitoring of Mycotoxins in Plasma of Patients with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease.

Exposure to environmental contaminants might play an important role in neurodegenerative disease pathogenesis, such as Parkinson´s disease (PD) and Alzheimer´s disease (AD). For the first time in Spain, the plasmatic levels of 19 mycotoxins from patients diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease (44 PD and 24 AD) and from their healthy companions (25) from La Rioja region were analyzed. The studied mycotoxins were aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, G2 and M1, T-2 and HT-2, ochratoxins A (OTA) and B (OTB), zearalenone, sterigmatocystin (STER), nivalenol, deoxynivalenol, 3-acetyldeoxynivalenol, 15-acetyldeoxynivalenol, deepoxy-deoxynivalenol, neosolaniol, diacetoxyscirpenol and fusarenon-X.

Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) food supplements and hepatotoxicity: an integrated evaluation approach.

Introduction: Turmeric is the common name for the rhizome of Curcuma longa L. In the recent years, food supplements containing turmeric have been marketed and widely used by an increasing number of consumers. Spontaneous reports of suspected adverse reactions to food supplements are collected within the Phytovigilance system.

Association between Urinary Levels of Aflatoxin and Consumption of Food Linked to Maize or Cow Milk or Dairy Products.

The aim of this analysis was to assess the association between consumption of maize and dairy products and urine and serum levels of aflatoxin FM1 (AFM1) in a sample of 59 males occupationally exposed (29) and non-exposed (30) to aflatoxins. Two urine samples were collected for each person; each sample was accompanied by a questionnaire on food consumption in the preceding 96 h. Given the similar levels of contamination found in exposed and non-exposed workers, the association between food consumption and AFM1 levels was analyzed by pooling samples from exposed and non-exposed workers.