Concentrations and health risk assessments of heavy metals in fish from the markets in Ahvaz Province, Iran

Propose - Heavy metals constitute one of the most hazardous substances that could be accumulated in biota coming from human activities such as agricultural and industrial wastes. This paper aims to study the levels of some of the most common heavy metals in muscles of the fish caught in the Karun River (Ahvaz, Iran) and to assess the health risks associated with their consumption.Design/Methodology/approach - In present study, the concentrations of three heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Cu) in the muscle of highly consumed fish species CtenopharyngodonIdella (Cyprinidae) collected from three selected markets (KhoramKooshk, Ahvaz-e Qadim and PadadShahr; total number of samples was 45) in Ahvaz city and human health risk associated with their consumption were detected by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS).Findings - The results indicated that the highest and lowest accumulated metal concentrations were related to Cu (20.36±0.84) and Cd (0.53±0.02), respectively. In addition, the mean difference for Pb and Cu across two pairwise of sampling sites were significant (Ahvaz-e Qadim&KhoramKooshk, P for Pb = 0.025, P for Cu = 0.033; Ahvaz-e Qadim&PadadShahr, P for Pb = 0.018, P for Cu = 0.039).The Estimated Daily Intake of all metals in muscles of fish in this study were below the legal limit and mean differences were not statistically significant among the sampling sites, except for Cu (Ahvaz-e Qadim&KhoramKooshk, P = 0.048; Ahvaz-e Qadim&PadadShahr, P = 0.041). Target Hazard Quotient (THQ) values were also all below 1.Originality/value - It can be concluded that the fish from Ahvaz city markets are comparatively clean and do not constitute a risk for human health.

Keywords:

Health risk , Heavy metal , Target hazard quotient , Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry , Ahvaz