Human exposure through diet of Nitrates, Nitrites and Nitrosamines. A scientific review

Identifier:  TFG:869

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TFG869

Authors:  Acosta Corbacho, Daniel; Vidal Puente, Anna; Llagostera, Mònica; Sabate Arasa, Noemí

Abstract:
The World Health Organization (WHO), in 2015, recommended to cut down the consumption of red and processed meats based on the article published by the journal The Lancet Oncology that found a relationship among red and processed meat intake with cancer risk.. This association, according to the authors of this review, comes from the occurrence of some chemical compounds such as nitrates, nitrites and nitrosamines. Nitrates can be found in nature, taking place inside of nitrogen cycle and they are found in some food products as vegetables and drinking water. Nitrites are usually used as additives in food industry in order to highlight the red meat color. Nitrosamines come up by the interaction between the previous ones (nitrates and nitrites) with secondary amines, a group of substances made by proteins breakdown. In this work, it is reviewed the scientific literature related to concentration and consumption of this three chemical compounds around the world. Surprisingly, it has been detected an important lack of scientific studies in Africa and Oceania. It was obtained some information about Europe, America and Asia, but the papers found were quiet ancient and the taken data were reduced because of the few analyzed food variability. The available data, concentration and consumption of foodstuff, shows some differences among countries. According to the authors, a plant-based diet, even if it contains a high nitrate levels, may protect from cancer incidence due to the amount of antioxidants compounds such as vitamin C and vitamin E that this dietary pattern includes because it has been demonstrated that this substances avoid nitrosamines formation (and specifically NDMA) inside the body. As a conclusion we can say that it should be carried out newest studies in areas like Africa, Oceania and North America to really show whether nitrates, nitrites and nitrosamines consumption may be a serious health problem.