Determination and Health Risk Assessment of Heavy Metals in Some Canned Food in Tehran, Iran

Heavy metal exposure has raised grave health concerns globally in recent decades. The objective of the present research was to examine the contents of heavy metals, including arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), mercury (Hg), lead (Pb), tin (Sn), and zinc (Zn) in canned fish, canned chick peas, and canned green peas collected from Tehran, Iran, utilizing inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). Moreover, the health risks of heavy metal exposure through canned sample ingestion were evaluated utilizing Monte-Carlo simulation. The heavy metals in samples were detected in the range of 0.01 - 0.2 mg/kg for As, < LOD - 0.05 mg/kg for Cd, 0.9 - 11.8 mg/kg for Cu, 3 - 12.17 mg/kg for Fe, < LOD - 0.11 mg/kg for Hg, 0.01 - 0.9 mg/kg for Pb, 0.02 - 4.08 mg/kg for Sn, and 2.9 - 7.75 mg/kg for Zn. The mean concentration of metals in samples was within standard limits. THQ and HI values were below 1 and CR values were below 10^-6, which were acceptable. These findings suggest that the concentrations of heavy metals in canned fish, chickpeas, and green peas do not pose a health risk to Iranian consumers.