ArticleMycotoxin research2025
Analysis of Ochratoxin A in commercial cocoa products: Intra-laboratory validation and estimation of potential dietary risk exposure in Belgium.
Article in Mycotoxin research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Ochratoxin A (OTA) contamination in cocoa products may pose a food safety threat to consumers and compliance for international trade. To routinely monitor these commodities, an analytical method using liquid chromatography combined with immunoaffinity clean up and tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was developed in-house and successfully validated, offering a limit of quantification (LOQ) of 0.1 µg/kg. Recovery experiments with OTA fortified samples (n = 27) in the range of 1–3 µg/kg, resulted in an overall average recovery rate of 104% with extended uncertainty (Uk=2) of 20%. Next, this method was applied to real cocoa powders (n = 26) and cocoa preparations (n = 15) bought from distinct supermarkets in Belgium. Most (90.2%) of examined samples were OTA contaminated (> LOQ) with an average level of 1.1 ± 1.3 µg/kg. Mean OTA level was significantly higher (p = 0.013) in cocoa powder samples (1.4 ± 1.6 µg/kg, 92%) than in cocoa preparation samples (0.5 ± 0.3 µg/kg, 87%). With the exception of 9.8% of the examined samples, OTA concentrations did not exceed the maximum permitted threshold of 3 µg/kg set by European Regulation EU 2023/915. The highest level in contaminated samples was 6.5 µg/kg, in cocoa powder, main ingredient used for cocoa preparation. Using these data, the probabilistic Monte Carlo simulation method was applied to estimate potential daily intakes for average and high cocoa consumption levels among adults (19–65 years) and the subsequent margin of exposure MoE (neoplastic and non-neoplastic) values were calculated. Based on the non-neoplastic endpoint (BMDL10 = 4.73 µg/kg BW) and neoplastic endpoint (BMDL10 = 14.5 µg/kg BW), the average and median MoE values were > 200 and > 10,000, respectively, for adult consumers, indicating a low health concern. Nevertheless, the high frequency of OTA-positive samples sold in Belgium is an important signal of attention for consumers that suggests an optimized frequency of surveillance according to European Regulations EU 2023/915 in order to reject the irregular batches of imported cocoa products.
Indexed as
Identifiers
41385010What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.