Levels, distribution, and health risks of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in four freshwater edible fish species from the Beijing market

Abstract

We first estimated the content of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the brain, liver, bladder, roe, and muscle of four species of edible freshwater fish from the Beijing market. The distribution characteristics of PAHs in these tissues and organs were analyzed to determine their health risks to humans. The results showed that the residual levels of wet weight and lipid-normalized weight PAHs in various tissues of these fish ranged from 0.51 ng·g-1 to 28.78 ng·g-1 and from 93.62 ng·g-1 to 8203.43 ng·g-1, respectively. The wet weight contents of PAHs were relatively higher in the brain and lower in the liver and muscle. But the differences were not significant. And the differences of lipid-normalized weight PAHs were significant, which in the bighead carp were found significantly the highest, followed in crucian carp, and the lowest in grass carp and carp. The contents of PAHs were the highest in the liver and the lowest in the brain. In the tissues with a higher lipid content, higher residual levels of PAHs were found. The carcinogenic risks for humans from residual PAHs in the various fish tissues were far below 10-5. © 2012 Wen-Jing Wu et al.