Heavy metal determination and health risk assessment of selected canned sardine available in Malaysian market

Canned sardine is one of the most common canned food products due to its conveniency and is affordable among the local people. However, despite of having a good taste and higher nutritive value, canned sardine may also contain chemical contaminants such as heavy metals which resulted from the pollution of water bodies as well as the usage of unsuitable packaging materials. The purpose of this study is to determine the concentration of heavy metal and health risk assessment of canned sardines that are purchased from selected market in Malaysia. In this study, the heavy metal residues from the selected samples are extracted using acid digestion method and the concentration is determined by using Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS). The health risk assessment of local people caused by the consumption of canned sardine is also evaluated by estimated daily intake (EDI), estimated weekly intake (EWI), target hazard quotient (THQ) and Hazard Index (HI). The average mean concentration of the heavy metals in canned sardine is found to be highest for Zn with 1.0464 mg/kg, followed by Pb with 0.1108 mg/kg, Cu with 0.0932 mg/kg and Cd with 0.0156 mg/kg, which is the lowest. Therefore, the ranking of heavy metals accomplished were Zn > Pb > Cu > Cd. In health risk assessment, the highest average value of THQ in canned sardine are in Zn which is 7.65 x 10-4, followed by THQ of Pb with 6.06 x 10-3, Cd is 3.42 x 10-4 while, Cu is 3.08 x 10-2. With the HI value for all five different samples of canned sardine are less than 1 which indicates that no cancer risk present for the canned sardine sample, where HI is 0.03. Thus, all five samples of canned sardine of different brands are safe for human consumption. This study is significant to provide information about the heavy metal residues that may accumulated in canned food products as well as spread awareness and educate consumers on the food safety.