Nickel in cereal foods in Gansu Province and health risk assessment

The nickel contamination in 243 samples of cereals and their products in Gansu Province was analysed by ICP-MS. The overall nickel detection rate was 89.3% and the average nickel content was 0.33 mg/kg. The average daily exposure per unit body weight of young children (3-6 years old), adults (20-59 years old) and elderly adults (60-79 years old) were 5.32-5.62 µg/kg bw/day, 3.48-3.77 µg/kg bw/day and 3.54-3.60 µg/kg bw/day, respectively. The non-carcinogenic risks of each age-sex group were (3.63-3.80) × 10^-8/year for young children, (2.35-2.55) × 10^-8/year for adults and (2.39-2.43) × 10^-8/year for the elderly. The carcinogenic risks of the adult group of (3.90-4.28) × 10^-5/year and the elderly group of (4.02-4.08) × 10^-5/year were below the acceptable annual risk level. For the children group, these data were slightly higher than the maximum acceptable annual risk level, indicating they may be at carcinogenic health risks.