Heavy metals and probabilistic risk assessment via <i>Prunella vulgaris</i> (food and medicine homology) consumption in Guangdong Province, China

<i>Prunella vulgaris</i> is widely used as the main ingredient of herb tea in Southeast Asia, as well as a traditional Chinese medicine. However, the heavy metal contaminations such as arsenic, cadmium, mercury and lead in <i>P. vulgaris</i> may be a cause for concern due to the environment pollution around, plantation and processing contamination. Thus, this study intented to assess both non-carcinogenic risks and carcinogenic risks attributed to cumulative exposure to the four heavy metals in <i>P. vulgaris.</i> The contaminations levels of heavy metals were determined in 90 batches of <i>P. vulgaris.</i> And the consumption level was obtained through a questionnaire survey among a total of 6,235 adult participants in Guangdong province. This study estimated the probabilistic health risks using Monte Carlo simulation, and found that the estimated mean and the 95th percentile values for cumulative noncarcinogenic risk (HI value) and carcinogenic risk (TCR value) of <i>P. vulgaris</i> were all within the acceptable risk. And the assessment results indicated that arsenic was the primary contributors to both noncarcinogenic and carcinogenic risks through <i>P. vulgaris</i> consumption. These findings and continuing the surveillance of heavy metals in <i>P. vulgaris</i> will be particularly relevant to both consumers and policy makers.