[Pesticides in human food]

Abstract

Pesticides represent a good picture of the Risk-Profits equation. Owing to their pest-destroying properties they are required in the mondial food but they remain inevitably present as residues in foods from both animal and vegetal origins. Therefore due to their biological activity a problem arise in Public Health. Actually, the investigations carried out on food contamination show that--except in pinpoint cases--pesticides seem less worrying that other contaminant such as heavy metals or mycotoxins. However questions remain concerning the consequences of repeated ingestion at low levels, the extrapolation for human of experimental results from animals, the simultaneous presence of several active compounds, their consequences on the food-value and the relationship between toxicity and nutritional or pathological states.