Dietary intake of PCDD/Fs and dioxin-like PCBs of the Belgian population

The World Health Organization recommends assessing human exposure to contaminants on a regular basis. In order to assess the current dietary exposure of the Belgian adult population to PCDD/Fs and dioxin-like PCBs and to update exposure estimates of 2000–2001, a total diet study was designed. The mean dietary intake of PCDD/Fs and dioxin-like PCBs in the Belgian adult population in 2008 was estimated to be 0.72 pg TEQ kgbw−1 d−1 (middle bound concentrations, TEF of 1998) based on occurrence data of 2008 and national food consumption data of 2004. This value is clearly below the Tolerable Weekly Intake (TWI) of 14 pg TEQ kgbw−1 week−1 set by the Scientific Committee on Food of the European Commission and below the provisional tolerable monthly intake of 70 pg TEQ kgbw−1 month−1 set by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives. Considering the cumulative distribution, the intake was less than 1 pg TEQ kgbw−1 d−1 for more than 80% of the population, and less than 2 pg TEQ kgbw−1 d−1 for the entire population. When using the 2005 TEF instead of the 1998 TEF, the mean dietary intake in the Belgian adult population was estimated to be 0.61 pg TEQ kgbw−1 d−1.