Dietary intake of lead and cadmium by children and adults – Result calculated from dietary recall and available lead/cadmium level in food in comparison to result from food duplicate diet method

The dietary intakes of lead and cadmium by 30 children and 30 adults living in Jinhu area in China were determined by the duplicate method with a 3-day sampling period. Dietary recall and available lead/cadmium level in food were also used to calculate dietary intakes.Lead intakes based on duplicate method were 15.66 μg (kgbw)−1 week−1 for children and 8.83 μg (kgbw)−1 week−1 for adults. Cadmium intakes were 2.07 μg (kgbw)−1 week−1 for children and 1.49 μg (kgbw)−1 week−1 for adult. The results from the dietary record method were as follows: lead intakes were 11.84 μg (kgbw)−1 week−1 for children and 7.70 μg (kgbw)−1 week−1 for adult. Cadmium intakes were 2.20 μg (kgbw)−1 week−1 for children and 1.44 μg (kgbw)−1 week−1 for adults. Children's dietary intakes were higher than those of adults’. The results of the dietary intakes calculated from two methods did not have significant difference. Compared to the FAO/WHO PTWIs for lead and cadmium, the average lead and cadmium dietary intakes are all below PTWIs.It was concluded that dietary record method can give comparatively accurate result for lead and cadmium dietary intakes compared with duplicate method. The average lead and cadmium dietary intakes for children and adults in Jinhu area are considered safe. However, the high level of dietary lead and cadmium intakes of children in this area deserves our attention.