Potential food carcinogens

In contrast, the calculation of human risk for genotoxic carcinogens from 

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Harris, R.K. and Haggerty, W.J. (1993) Assays for potentially anti-carcinogenic phytochemicals in flaxseed. Cereal Foods World 38, 147-151. 

M. Jagerstad, K. Skog, and A. Solyakov, Effects of possible binding of potential human carcinogens in cooked foods to melanoidins, in Melanoidins in Food and Health, Vol. 1, J. M. Ames (ed), European Communities, Luxembourg, 2000, 89-92. 

Hertog, M.G.L., Holknan, P.C.H., and van de Putte, B., Content of potentially anti-carcinogenic flavonoids of tea infusions, wines, and fruit juices. J. Agric. Food Chem., 41, 1242-1248, 1993. 

This compound used to be employed as an industrial solvent and was used in cutting oils. However, workers exposed to it suffered liver damage and developed jaundice, and the compound, as well as other nitrosamines, was found to be a carcinogen. A number of other nitrosamines were later found in industrial materials and as by-products of food processing and preservation. Because of their potential as carcinogens, nitrosamines are avoided in the practice of green chemistry. 

N. J. Van Abbe, Letter to the editor Bacterial mutagenicity and carcinogenic potential, Food... 

The ability to detect environmental contaminants at very low levels had important regulatory implications under the 1958 Delaney Clause of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), which prohibited the presence of carcinogenic substances as additives in processed foods (47), Pesticide residues were included under this rule. The Delaney Clause, based upon the theory that no risk threshold exists for chemical carcinogens, did not permit balancing benefits of food additives with potentially low carcinogenic risk when ingested... 

Assessment of whether a chemical has the potential to cause adverse effects in humans arises usually from direct observation of an effect in animals or humans, such as the acute poisoning episodes that have occurred when potatoes contain high levels of glycoalkaloids. Epidemiological studies have also been used to infer a possible relationship between intake of a particular type of food, or constituent of that food, and the potential to cause an adverse effect. Such observations led to the characterisation of the aflatoxins as human carcinogens. However, natural toxic substances that occur in plant foods have often been identified through observations in animals, particularly farm animals. It was observations of adverse effects in farm animals that led to the further characterisation of the phytoestrogens and the mycotoxins. In other instances, the concern arises from the chemical similarity to other known toxins. 

The NO + 03 chemiluminescent reaction [Reactions (1-3)] is utilized in two commercially available GC detectors, the TEA detector, manufactured by Thermal Electric Corporation (Saddle Brook, NJ), and two nitrogen-selective detectors, manufactured by Thermal Electric Corporation and Antek Instruments, respectively. The TEA detector provides a highly sensitive and selective means of analyzing samples for A-nitrosamines, many of which are known carcinogens. These compounds can be found in such diverse matrices as foods, cosmetics, tobacco products, and environmental samples of soil and water. The TEA detector can also be used to quantify nitroaromatics. This class of compounds includes many explosives and various reactive intermediates used in the chemical industry [121]. Several nitroaromatics are known carcinogens, and are found as environmental contaminants. They have been repeatedly identified in organic aerosol particles, formed from the reaction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with atmospheric nitric acid at the particle surface [122-124], The TEA detector is extremely selective, which aids analyses in complex matrices, but also severely limits the number of potential applications for the detector [125-127],... 

Some chemicals are believed to have no threshold above which toxic effects are observed. In other words, a single molecule has the potential to induce an adverse effect. The most common group of hazards in this respect are genotoxic carcinogens. Chemical carcinogens are not normally approved as food additives because an acceptable daily intake cannot be established. 

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