I study quality of meat for human consumption from animals exposed to the pollution of rivers and vegetation at Peru. Although that the viscera are used as food in Peru, it were not considered with research purposes. However, kidney as well as the liver concentrate high level of metals according to the literature. What kind of tissue is best for to detect heavy metals, the meat or viscera?
Dear Luis
As you can determining viscera and meet both in risk assessment , study on both of them is recommended but if you are not able to investigation on many samples , you should follow the viscera due to accumulating heavy metals in them is much higher.
Levels of (heavy) metals in muscle tissue are usually not affected by (environmental) exposure to them. Levels in kidney and liver usually are good indicators for increased exposure.
See for Cd attachment
Article Carryover of cadmium from feed in growing pigs
In a study conducted to determine the concentration of heavy metals – chromium,
cadmium, lead, nickel, copper, zinc, manganese in internal organs and various muscles of Lithuanian Black and White cows and steers of the same breed, concentration of heavy metals was different in lungs, liver and kidneys. The highest concentrations of chromium and copper were those in lungs, of cadmium in kidneys and those of zinc and manganese in liver. The concentrations of lead were similar in lungs, liver and kidneys.
Ref: Bulgarian Journal of Veterinary Medicine (2006), 9, No 1, 3541
It is much better to use both meat and viscera, but if the facilities is limited, you could use the viscera
Viscera (liver and kidney) are more important than meat, to determine heavy metals contamination. but you may take into account that mammals have a very good digestive barrier for some metals ( for instance some lead salts are absorbed in only 2%), so faecal samples are also important. From the metals passing the digestive tract, lead is deposited in bone tissues, but arsenium, cadmium, selenium and zinc you may find in suggetive concentrations in hair samples. Anyway, cutting the hair and having adequate analitical devices is more easy and acceptable (from animal wellfare point of view) than killing animals
Dear Luis.
Visceral organs are always a better indicator of any of the mineral of your interest. for this Levels in kidney and liver usually are good indicators for increased exposure. even bone can be an indicator for some heavy metals. arsenic, cadmium can be accreted in skin samples also.
Blood biochemistry, thyroid hormones, and oxidant/antioxidant status of guinea pigs challenged with sodium arsenite or arsenic trioxide
RK Mohanta, AK Garg, RS Dass, SK Behera - Biological trace element research, 2014
Effect of vitamin E supplementation on arsenic induced alteration in blood biochemical profile, oxidant/antioxidant status, serum cortisol level and retention of arsenic and selenium in goats
RK Mohanta, AK Garg, RS Dass - Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology, 2015
Minerals tend to deposit differently in viscera and muscles. Liver, kidney, testes, spleen, lymph nodes , heart and many other visceral organs tend to deposit elements in differential preference manner. You can see our article as mentioned by Dr Swain, the differential deposition of arsenic and selenium in different visceral organs and muscle. But surprisingly the increase in muscle tissue in one of my study was 15-25 times that of control. Lead accumulation tends to be in bone, whereas As , Se and Cd in liver, kidney, testes and other organs. They also try to get excreted by skin and hair tissue, thus you cannot ignore these ones. see this link.
You can also get nice articles on this aspects from Biological Trace Element Research, Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology journals.
Try to find out what are the prevalent minerals in this region and then identify the organs to be analysed, but include meat too, though may be insignificant, but it will indicate the intake pattern.
http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/biochemistry+%26+biophysics/journal/12011
http://link.springer.com/journal/128
Article Effect of Vitamin E Supplementation on Arsenic Induced Alter...
Thanks for the information received which will be very useful for the development of my research in the city of Arequipa Peru where you can find high levels of pollution in their rivers from which its inhabitants consume "drinking water" with the presence of heavy metals due to mining and industrial activity
I study to deted heavy metalls of mercury in zone low of ocoña river.
Dear Friend
As far as I study in some cases recently concentrations of lead and cadmium were accumulated in lungs, liver and kidneys ( esp Liver).
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