TDS-based exposure and risk assessment

Total Diet Studies (TDS) monitor chemical levels in representative consumed foods as eaten (e.g. bread, pizza), so after processing steps (Lee et al. (2015)). TDSs contrast to the common chemical monitoring studies on raw primary commodities (e.g. wheat, tomato). In some TDSs, samples are analysed directly, in other TDSs samples of similar food products are pooled before chemical analysis. Pooling of samples means that average concentrations can be well estimated, but that less or no infromation is available about variability. Therefore, in the context of risk assessment, TDS data are used for the assessment of chronic risks from long-term exposure.

This section contains three demonstrators (MCRA standard actions) on how to use TDS data for exposure and risk assessment. The demonstrators were developed in the FNS-Cloud project. Two examples illustrate simple TDS data on consumed foods. The first demonstrator shows the exposure to methyl-mercury and the risk for German children. The second demonstrator shows the exposure to nickel and the risk for several Belgian age groups. DON for Dutch children. The third demonstrator contains the previous two as specific cases, but also includes a case where foods are pooled before analysis, for the exposure to the mycotoxin DON and the risk for Dutch children. In this last case additional data are included to describe the TDS sample compositions in terms of the modelled foods.

After trying out the standard actions, prospective users can convert or clone these standard actions to full actions for use with other data or using other exposure or risk models.

Standard actions

The following standard actions are available as TDS exposure and risk assessment demonstrators:

• TDS-based long-term exposure and risk assessment of methylmercury for German children

• Long-term dietary exposure and risk of nickel for the Belgian population

• TDS-based long term dietary exposure and risk assessment