Health concerns on provisional tolerable weekly intake of aluminium in children and adults from vegetables in Mandi-Gobindgarh (India).

Metallurgical industrial processes have been reported to cause higher aluminium (Al) exposure in humans through plant food intake due to higher soil Al content and acidification of soil resulted from industrial acid rains. Mandi-Gobindgarh is critically environmentally polluted steel industrial town in India in which Al is used for deoxidation, grain refining and alloying in steel production. The Al processing has been reported to release Al into the environment, and therefore present study was undertaken to investigate the dietary Al exposure in children and adult population of Mandi-Gobindgarh from consumption of vegetable food stuffs grown in the fields around steel industries. Thirteen vegetable types including fruit vegetables, root vegetables, and leafy vegetables (LVs) along with soil samples were collected from agricultural fields around M-site (Mandi-Gobindgarh industrial site) and C-site (control non-industrial site) and analysed for Al on WD-XRF. Higher vegetable Al content was reported due to higher soil Al content and higher acidic soil pH at M-site than C-site. Correlation coefficient data have shown positive correlation of plant/vegetable Al with soil Al whereas negative correlation with soil pH at both the sites. Hierarchical cluster analysis based on vegetable Al content and bioaccumulation factor depicted higher number of clusters of vegetables at M-site (3-clusters) than C-site (2-clusters). The hazard quotients for Al intake in children and adults were found less than one. However, the weekly dietary Al exposure data have shown more than provisional tolerable weekly intake of 2 mg/kgbw/week in them from two LVs (Spinach and Brassica) from M-site than C-site which increases health concerns in humans from Mandi-Gobindgarh.