Monitoring of Essential and Toxic Elements in Multivitamin/Mineral Effervescent Tablet Supplements and Safety Assessment

Abstract

Multivitamin/mineral (MVM) supplements are the most commonly utilized dietary supplements by many populations. However, there is a severe concern about their adverse effects due to elemental impurities. In the present study, it was aimed to determine the levels of 11 elemental impurities (Cd, Pb, As, Hg, Co, V, Ni, Se, Mo, Cu, and Cr) by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and evaluate the human health risk associated with the consumption of 33 MVM effervescent tablet supplements available in Turkey. The precision of the method in terms of relative standard deviation (RSD) was less than 4.6%. The accuracy of the method was tested with recovery experiments, and the results ranged between 86 and 107%. The impurity levels for Cd, Pb, As, Co, V, Ni, Se, Mo, Cu, and Cr were found between 0.011-0.050, 0.025-0.098, 0.018-0.056, 0.010-0.626, 0.027-0.290, 0.026-1.65, 1.92-21.83, 0.034-34.09, 0.140-183.9, and 0.033-13.10 mu g/g, respectively, and Hg was not detected in any sample. The calculated concentrations for elemental impurities complied with EMA and USP guidelines, except one supplement for Se (21.83 mu g/g) with a permitted limit of 15 mu g/g. The hazard quotient (HQ) and hazard index (HI) levels were below 1 for all samples within the ranges of 3.4 x 10-1-1.4 x 10-6 for HQ and 7.8 x 10-1-1.4 x 10-6 for HI indicating that there is no risk for consumption. The carcinogenic risk (CR) of As was between 1.7 x 10-6 and 5.9 x 10-6, below the threshold value of 1 x 10-4. The results showed that there is no risk to human health.