Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Multicenter Study
. 2018 Mar 10;10(3):336.
doi: 10.3390/nu10030336.

Assessment of Mycotoxin Exposure in Breastfeeding Mothers with Celiac Disease

Francesco Valitutti  1 , Barbara De Santis  2 , Chiara Maria Trovato  3 , Monica Montuori  4 , Simona Gatti  5 , Salvatore Oliva  6 , Carlo Brera  7 , Carlo Catassi  8
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Assessment of Mycotoxin Exposure in Breastfeeding Mothers with Celiac Disease

Francesco Valitutti et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Objective: To assess the risk of mycotoxin exposure (aflatoxin M1, ochratoxin A, and zearalenone) in celiac disease (CD) breastfeeding mothers and healthy control mothers, as well as in their offspring, by quantifying these contaminants in breast milk.

Study design: Thirty-five breastfeeding women with CD on a gluten-free diet and 30 healthy breastfeeding controls were recruited. Milk sampling was performed three times per day for three consecutive days. Mycotoxin content was investigated by an analytical method using immunoaffinity column clean-up and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with fluorometric detection.

Results: Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) was detected in 37% of CD group samples (mean ± SD = 0.012 ± 0.011 ng/mL; range = 0.003-0.340 ng/mL). The control group showed lower mean AFM1 concentration levels in 24% of the analyzed samples (0.009 ± 0.007 ng/mL; range = 0.003-0.067 ng/mL, ANOVA on ranks, p-value < 0.01). Ochratoxin A and zearalenone did not differ in both groups.

Conclusion: Breast milk AFM1 contamination for both groups is lower than the European safety threshold. However, the estimated exposures of infants from CD mothers and control mothers was much higher (≃15 times and ≃11 times, respectively) than the threshold set by the joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA). Since incongruities exist between JECFA and the European Union standard, a novel regulatory review of the available data on this topic is desirable. Protecting babies from a neglected risk of high AFM1 exposure requires prompt regulatory and food-control policies.

Keywords: breast milk; celiac disease; mycotoxins.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

C.C. receives a consultancy honorary from Schär and Menarini Diagnostics. The other authors have no conflicts of interest relevant to this article to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) mean breast milk concentration for each of the CD and control mothers. Means were obtained by averaging individual samples for each subject. The red line represents the maximum AFM1 threshold established by the European Union for infant formulas.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Daily corn intake of CD breastfeeding mothers and control mothers.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Wu F., Groopman J.D., Pestka J.J. Public health impacts of foodborne mycotoxins. Annu. Rev. Food Sci. Technol. 2014;5:351–372. doi: 10.1146/annurev-food-030713-092431. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Some Naturally Occurring Substances: Food Items and Constituents, Heterocyclic Aromatic Amines and Mycotoxins. IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans. [(accessed on 12 December 2017)];1996 Volume 56 Available online: https://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol56/mono56.pdf.
    1. Wild C.P., Gong Y.Y. Mycotoxins and human disease: A largely ignored global health issue. Carcinogenesis. 2010;31:71–82. doi: 10.1093/carcin/bgp264. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Marroquín-Cardona A.G., Johnson N.M., Phillips T.D., Hayes A.W. Mycotoxins in a changing global environment—A review. Food Chem. Toxicol. 2014;69:220–230. doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2014.04.025. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Warth B., Braun D., Ezekiel C.N., Turner P.C., Degen G.H., Marko D. Biomonitoring of Mycotoxins in Human Breast Milk: Current State and Future Perspectives. Chem. Res. Toxicol. 2016;29:1087–1097. doi: 10.1021/acs.chemrestox.6b00125. - DOI - PubMed

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources