Tropical soils contain varying levels of heavy metals which end up in crops. Are there long-term studies on the consumption of vegetables or food crops with heavy metals within and those above permissible limits?
Some heavy metals form complexes with other constituents of the aquatic environment or the internal milieu of the organism. This leads to bioavailability, bioaccumulation that lead to toxicity.
Some countries have food safety monitoring strategies in place to periodically monitor the levels of heavy metals as contaminants in food commodities. These levels are compared with threshold values knows as "Permissible values/ Maximum limits" etc.; a set of standards prepared by several international bodies such as Joint FAO-WHO committee on food contaminants and additives (JECFA). You can view these limits through Codex Alimentarius.
The importance of these values, is in fact, that the levels been stablished considering long term/ chronic dietary exposure to populations. They consider exposure/health effects related studies conducted by many countries in the world to determine safe levels. So yes, there are long term studies conducted world wide for different foods.
In Asia, where I am from, our dietary staple 'rice' consumption and adverse effects are evident in literature. This will be a good starting point for you, you may be able to find studies related to heavy metal accumulation in rice and adverse health effects to populations. Then you will be able to relate the search criteria for the crops which you are interested in. The more you are familiarized with the terminology, surely will be able to locate some good studies worldwide.
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