Article 4: Lead Contamination in Selected Foods from Riyadh City Market and Estimation of the Daily

Intake
1. What are the sources of lead described in the article?
A significant source of lead is food, and determination of lead in food can be used for the
estimation of lead exposure. Also, air, soil, water, and everywhere.

2. Briefly describe how human exposure happens/what are sources of exposure in humans?
Food, the industrial revolution (which saw the introduction of leaded gasoline), soil, water, and
air are key sources of exposure.

3. What are the weekly exposure limits set by FAO/WHO?

weekly intake (PTWI) of 25 μg/kg bw/ week for lead.

4. Briefly describe the absorption and toxicity of lead

Absorption:
 After ingestion, the absorption rate of lead ranges from 3% to 80%, whereas the typical
absorption rates of dietary lead in adults and infants are 10% and 50%
 Lead is excreted through the kidney and to a lesser extent in the bile while non-absorbed dietary
lead is excreted in the feces. Organic lead may be metabolized to inorganic lead.
Toxicity:
 Toxicity appears after the food consumption whether it is regular consumption or not.

5. What are the main findings of this study? Which food times found to contain high levels of lead?
Concentration of lead depends on the type of food, processing methods, and storage.
-sweets contain higher amount of lead.
-meat and meat product in the second place
-the lowest in fruits and beverages

6. Was these levels higher or lower than the recommended weekly limits?
daily intakes of lead according to the two sources are 22.7 and 24.5 μg/person/day respectively,
which are lower than the recommended weekly limits