Chronic Dietary Exposure to Pesticide Residues from Apples, Oranges, and Bananas in the HELLANS 2024–2025 Adult Cohort: A Deterministic and Probabilistic Screening Assessment

Chronic dietary exposure to pesticide residues links environmental contamination and food safety. This study assessed substance-specific and cumulative exposure from apples, oranges, and bananas among 1318 adults participating in the HELLANS 2024–2025 cohort. Consumption was estimated from a 24-h dietary recall and a food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ), while residue data derived from the Greek national monitoring for 2022–2024. Deterministic chronic exposure was calculated using EFSA PRIMo revision 3.1. Endpoint-specific total margins of exposure (MOETs) were estimated for chronic brain and/or erythrocyte acetylcholinesterase inhibition and hypothyroidism under lower-bound, middle-bound, and upper-bound scenarios. Participant-level cumulative exposure was calculated directly for all 1318 participant records, while uncertainty in monitoring-derived mean concentrations was quantified using 5000 stratified outer-bootstrap replicates. All calculable deterministic estimates were below 100% of the ADI; the highest was phosmet (2.34% ADI). Under the UB scenario, P95 and P99 MOETs were 1324 and 1070 for acetylcholinesterase inhibition and 3944 and 3194 for hypothyroidism; the corresponding P99.9 screening-tail estimates were 928 and 2854. The 95% monitoring-sample uncertainty intervals for the UB P99.9 estimates were 897–954 and 2740–2957, respectively. All point estimates and lower 95% monitoring-sample uncertainty limits exceeded the screening value of 100. Sensitivity analyses using midpoint FFQ frequencies and hypothetical reductions in orange and banana residues did not alter the risk interpretation. Overall, the results did not indicate a chronic screening-level concern from the three assessed fruits within the study cohort, a volunteer sample with high educational attainment, but should not be extrapolated to total dietary exposure or the Greek population.