World Grain - September 2005 - 69

FEATURE: MYCOTOXINS - THE HIDDEN KILLERS

Corn exhibiting mould growth. Photo couresy of Alltech.

Except for seasonal elevations in the contamination of corn,
aflatoxin contamination of cereals rarely is a concern, although
its frequent co-occurrence with combinations of other mycotoxins
can cause serious problems.

overall situation is characterized by
widespread contamination at low levels,
leading to human health risk related to
chronic exposure.
Except for AFM1, available data
shows that in a considerable part of the
world maximum safe intake levels are
exceeded for fumonisin and DON. It is
also reasonable to hypothesize that further acquisition of data could show that
dangerous levels of T-2/HT-2 and OTA
are being ingested.
Additional warnings arise from the
fact that the single mycotoxin approach
in the definition of Permissible Maximum Tolerable Daily Intake (PMTDI)
ignores the potentially additive and/or
synergic toxicity of diverse mycotoxins
that very frequently coexist in foods,
especially cereals. Considering several
factors such as frequency and levels of
contamination, relative importance of
the food in a diet and available toxicological information, some peculiar situations are worthy of consideration.
OTA seems to be among the most
common mycotoxins and the one that
should be monitored with the maximum attention because of its occur-

rence in almost all foods.
In a hypothetical contaminated
foods warning list, cereals should be
listed first because of their worldwide
dietary importance and because of the
demonstrated natural co-occurrence of
almost all the possible combinations
of the major mycotoxins at sometimes
elevated levels.
As a final concern, children merit the
utmost consideration by researchers and
public authorities, because their diets
often lack diversity, their body weight
ratio leads to an unfavorable exposure
dose and they tend to be more sensitive
to mycotoxins.
More toxicological and epidemiological information is needed and the
creation of harmonized regulation must
WG
be a priority.
This article is based on information presented
by Dr. Fabio Galvano at Alltech's Nutritional
Biotechnology in the Food and Feed Industries
Symposium, Lexington, Kentucky, U.S., in
May 2005. Galvano is an associate professor
in the Department of Agro-Forestry and
Environmental Science, Mediterranean
University of Reggio, Italy.
He may be contacted at fgalvano@unict.it.

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World Grain - September 2005

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