A Atamaleki, N Naimi, Y Fakhri, H Sharifi Maleksari, H Nosrati, S Fallah,
Volume 12, Issue 4 (2-2020)
Abstract
Background and Objective: Nowadays, water shortage crisis leads to wastewater reuse in agriculture sector. The presence of pollutants such as heavy metal in wastewater results in the accumulation of them in vegetables, and it will finally be transferred to consumers and will have irreversible effects on their health. Therefore, the present study was performed to do a systematic review along with meta-analysis on heavy metal accumulation in mint plant that is irrigated with wastewater.
Materials and Methods: Related articles were collected from databases like SID, Magiran, Iranmedex, IranDoc, Embase, Medline, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google scholar between 1982 and 2019 and the required data were extracted. Then, due to the heterogeneity of studies entered in the research, a random effect model was applied to analyze them using STATA 14 software. Non-carcinogenic risk was assessed for children and adults.
Results: According to the search results, 1693 articles were entered in the review process until the beginning of 2019 and finally only 12 articles were included in the research. According to the results of the meta-analysis, the order of the metals based on concentration (mg/kg) were: Zn > Ni > Cr > Cu > Pb > Cd. Also, based on the non-carcinogenic risk assessment results, mint consumption showed a significant health effects on children age group compared to adults, especially in India and Pakistan.
Conclusion: wastewater reuse in agriculture sector leads to increase concentration of metals in vegetables like mint. This increased the risk of non-carcinogenicity in the age groups, especially children. Therefore, it is recommended that continuous monitoring of irrigation sources, soils, and vegetables is done to prevent the transmission of these pollutants to the human food cycle.
Motahare Khammar, Parisa Sadighara, Gholamreza Jahed-Khaniki, Ebrahim Molaee-Aghaee,
Volume 18, Issue 2 (9-2025)
Abstract
Background and objective: Given the harmful effects of Ochratoxin A on living organisms—particularly humans—and its potential to cause various severe health outcomes, a systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to assess the concentration of Ochratoxin A in cocoa and cocoa-based products.
Materials and Methods: After reviewing and searching for keywords including Ochratoxin A, cocoa, and meta-analysis, 17 studies were ultimately selected from an initial pool of 1,482 articles published between 2016 and 2022. The selection was carried out through four screening stages using international databases such as Web of Science, PubMed, and ScienceDirect, as well as search engines like Google Scholar and SID. The results and data were analyzed using meta-analysis methods in STATA version 17.
Results: The average concentration of Ochratoxin A reported in studies from various continents and countries was 2.461 µg/kg. The highest average concentration was observed in the Americas (3.16 µg/kg), while the lowest was reported in Asia (2.13 µg/kg). By publication year, the highest concentration was recorded in 2018 (4.5 µg/kg), and the lowest in 2022 (0.95 µg/kg). Among analytical methods, liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS) reported the highest average concentration of Ochratoxin A, at 3.11 µg/kg.
Conclusion: The concentration of Ochratoxin A has shown a decreasing trend, which may be attributed to the implementation of preventive measures and strategies to inhibit its production or reduce its levels on farms. Additionally, the LC method demonstrated greater detection sensitivity compared to other analytical techniques.
