Acrylamide: more than just another food toxicant?

Determination of acrylamide in dry feedstuff for dogs and cats

Acrylamide is considered to be an endogenous contaminant of food and feedstuff. Attention is paid to the acrylamide content in human nutrition products; however, there is lack of data about its concentrations in feedstuff. The aim of this study was to use a newly developed adsorptive stripping voltammetry procedure for determination of acrylamide concentrations in five and three different kinds of dog and cat dry feedstuff, respectively. The applied analytical procedure consists of a solvent extraction in ultrasound bath, followed by voltammetric measurement at the hanging mercury drop electrode in ammonia buffer. The accuracy of the method was verified by use of standard reference materials. The range of acrylamide concentration found in samples of dry dog and cat feedstuff ranged from 106 to 358 μg/kg, and from 66 to 269 μg/kg, respectively. The precision of analyses expressed in form of the relative standard deviations ranged between 0.6–1.7%. The voltammetric procedure appears to be a reliable, sensitive, rapid and low-cost analytical technique for the determination of acrylamide in food and feedstuff. The concentrations of acrylamide found in feedstuff were relatively moderate but it is undoubtedly necessary to monitor its concentrations in future.

Acrylamide and cancer risk—expert risk assessments and the public debate

This study has two parts. In the first part, fourteen carcinogen risk assessments of acrylamide made by different expert groups during the years 1976-2002 are compared in terms of their overall conclusions and their use of primary data. In the second part, the public debate on acrylamide and cancer risks and the questioning of the expert risk assessment, that arose as a reaction to the identification of this substance in staple food is discussed. In the first part it is shown that the expert risk assessors concur to a large degree about the assessment of the acrylamide potential to cause cancer. Three risk assessors have concluded that acrylamide is neither carcinogenic to humans nor to animals, while eleven risk assessors have concluded that acrylamide is carcinogenic in animals and is likely to be carcinogenic in humans. The differences in the overall conclusions seem to a large extent be explained by an evolving database. The risk assessors agree considerably on how to interpret and evaluate the available primary data, but the coverage of the available references is low. These results are also compared to those previously published on risk assessments of trichloroethylene. In the second part the arguments used in the public debate to question the expert risk assessment are summarized and it is argued that they are not based on the principles generally accepted in toxicological risk assessment.