Human health risk assessment and contamination of heavy metals and organophosphate pesticides accumulated in rice crop of northern Iran

Abstract

Introduction: Environmental pollution has become one of the main problems of today's
societies in a way that in addition to natural ecosystems, it also endangers human health.
Therefore, in this study, the contamination of heavy metals and organophosphate toxins
accumulated in two different types of rice consumed by humans was measured. The risk
of carcinogenicity and non-carcinogenicity associated with these toxins for children and
adults in rice fields in northern Iran was also assessed.
Materials & Methods: For this purpose, 17 stations were selected for sampling rice
consumption from farms in Mazandaran province in the first and second cultivation
groups. After sampling, rice samples were wrapped in foil to measure toxins and placed
in plastic packs to measure heavy metals. Heavy metals were measured using ICP-MS
and toxins were measured using GC-MS and mercury was measured using mercury
autoanalyzer. Carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risk indices for both groups of
children and adults in the first and second culture groups were evaluated and calculated.
Results: The results showed that nickel and lead showed the highest values in the
collected samples at station 14 at 0.38 and at station 6 at 0.17 mg/kg, respectively. In
addition, the toxic and carcinogenic metals arsenic, cadmium and mercury in stations 6,
5 and 6 showed values of 0.094, 0.017 and 0.001 mg/kg, respectively. Station 1 and
Station 2 have the highest and lowest values of diazinon in the range of 0.038 and 0.004,
respectively, and chloroprifus have the highest and lowest values in stations 8 and 14,
respectively, in the range of 0.019 and 0.001 mg/kg. The non-carcinogenic risk of the
first and second cultures was highest for children and adults for safe toxins and for nickel
metal. THQ levels also showed a high risk for consumers.
Conclusion: The risk of carcinogenicity for the target groups was highest in different
concentrations of chromium and in the second group for children the group had high risk
levels. The results of this study showed that rice produced in farms in northern Iran
contains different amounts of toxins and heavy metals that have carcinogenic and
non-carcinogenic potential for consumers.