Nitrates in industrial and traditional tomato paste from Arsenjan City, Iran: a health risk assessment study

ABSTRACT

A comprehensive approach was used for the first time to measure NO₃^– risk in tomato paste consumption; besides a robust deterministic and probabilistic method was used. The mean levels of NO₃^– in homemade and industrial tomato paste were 7.36 mg/kg and 43.69 mg/kg, respectively. The Monte Carlo simulation confirmed that these values were below normal levels (HQ less than 1). The sensitivity analysis displayed that FIR was the main factor affecting the risk to human health in both groups. The interactive plot demonstrated the interaction between C and IR for children and adults in both types of tomato paste. This study concludes that NO3– ingestion due to tomato paste consumption poses no significant health risk. However, considering that food and water constitute the primary sources of NO₃^– intake, continuous monitoring is recommended due to potential health risks associated with excessive NO₃^– consumption, including certain forms of cancer.

KEYWORDS:

• Nitrate
• health risk assessment
• Monte carlo simulation
• Sobol sensitivity analysis
• food safety

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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The authors declare their Consent to Participate in this article.

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Authors contributions

Amin Mohammadpour: Investigation, Data curation, Resources, Conceptualization, Writing, original draft, Modelling. Ehsan Gharehchahi: Methodology, literature searching, writing & editing. Mohammad Reza Narooie: literature searching, writing & editing. Aynura Aliyeva: literature searching. Zahra Derakhshan and Amin Mousavi Khaneghah: Supervision, review & editing.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by Shiraz University of Medical Sciences [Grant number 27415].