Abstract
Chewing areca nuts is popular in China. Areca alkaloids are the major toxic compounds in areca nuts. In this study, the levels of four areca alkaloids (i.e. arecoline, arecaidine, guvacoline and guvacine) in 119 areca nut samples were analyzed and 3030 areca nut consumption questionnaires were collected to investigate the exposure to areca alkaloids in the Chinese populations through areca nut chewing. The levels of arecoline, arecaidine, guvacoline and guvacine in different areca nut products were 0.46–4.97 mg/g, 0.57–7.51 mg/g, 0.08–1.44 mg/g and 0.03–8.48 mg/g, respectively. Chewing fresh areca fruits was the main source of arecoline and the total areca alkaloids exposure. The estimated daily intake (EDI) of arecoline and the total areca alkaloids for the Chinese populations were 1.126 and 2.625 mg/kg BW/day for average exposure, 4.411 and 9.739 mg/kg BW/day for high exposure (P95th). The EDI varied with age and gender. The young male population (≤ 34 years) had the highest EDI than other populations. Concentrated and focused efforts are required to educate the general public, especially the young male population, about the risks of areca nut chewing to reduce exposure to areca alkaloids of the Chinese population.
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The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. All relevant sources are included in the Reference list and the number of references does not exceed the prescribed limit.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Emergency Project for Risk Assessment of Areca Nut (Key Project of Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Hainan Province & Wanning Municipal People's Government). The authors were grateful to all participants in the survey questionnaire.
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Emergency Project for Risk Assessment of Areca Nut (Key Project of Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Hainan Province & Wanning Municipal People's Government).
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The contribution of each author of this manuscript are: MJ: conducted methodology, investigated, performed the analysis, data analysis, manuscript writing. LZ and H-HB: contributed data or analysis tools, investigation, wrote the review. H-MC: collected the questionnaire data, supervision. YW: methodology, investigation. X-SH and FC: funding acquisition, critical revision of the article, supervision and final approval for the publication. Y-CZ: designed the analysis data collection, supervised the work, and edited the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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Ji, M., Zhang, L., Bao, HH. et al. Exposure assessment to areca alkaloids in the Chinese populations through areca nut chewing. J Food Sci Technol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-024-05966-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-024-05966-6