Evaluation of Bioaccessibility and Bioavailability of Food Contaminants

The risk from food contaminants was evaluated by comparing the total amount contained in one day’s meals with the accepted daily intake (ADI) value for the relevant chemical substance. However, not all food contaminants are taken up by the human body: only the bioavailable part of the ingested contaminant, that is, the part which enters into the systemic circulation after release from its matrix in the digestive tract and transportation across the intestinal epithelium, can exert toxic effect. For better risk assessment, it is therefore important to know the bioavailability of individual contaminants with a broad range of chemical matrix combinations. Recently, various in vitro digestion models have been developed to measure the release of contaminant from foods (bioaccessibility) using simulated digestive fluids. The bioaccessibility of the contaminant for subsequent risk assessment is taken to be the worst-case estimation of its oral bioavailability. In the present article, recent progress in this field is summarized.