TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2013//
TI  - Assessment of potential health risk for arsenic and heavy metals in some herbal flowers and their infusions consumed in China
JO  - Environmental monitoring and assessment
A1  - Zhu, Fangkun
A1  - Wang, Xuejing
A1  - Fan, Wenxiu
A1  - Qu, Li
A1  - Qiao, Meiying
A1  - Yao, Shuwen
SP  - 3909
EP  - 3916
VL  - 185
IS  - 5
N2  - Herbal tea is consumed widely in China due to their therapeutic efficacy, mild features, and relatively low cost. To assess the health risk associated with drinking herbal tea, arsenic and seven heavy metals, namely Cu, Zn, Fe, Mn, Cd, Ni, and Pb in eight different types of herbal flowers and their infusions were determined by inductively coupled-mass spectrometry after microwave digestion. The accuracy and precision of the analytical method were confirmed by the certified reference material (GBW 07605). The results suggested that significant differences existed in all metal concentrations determined among different varieties of herbal flowers and their infusions. In general, the concentration of iron was higher than those of seven other metals in the investigated herbal flowers and their infusions. The hazard quotient (HQ) and hazard index (HI) were calculated to evaluate the noncarcinogenic health risk from individual metal and combined metals due to the dietary intakes via consumption of herbal infusions. Both the HQ and HI levels were far below one, suggesting that the dietary intakes of the eight metals determined from daily consumption 4.5 g of the investigated herbal flowers for a normal adult should pose no potential risk to human health.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0167-6369
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10661-012-2839-y
ID  - ref1
ER  -