Occurrence and carcinogenic risk assessment of N-nitrosamines in some dried aquatic products in China

N-nitrosamines are a class of carcinogenic chemicals. Despite considerable efforts to reduce their occurrence in drinking water, drugs and animal-derived foods, there have been few reports on the dietary assessment of N-nitrosamines in dried aquatic products, and their potential dietary exposure risk has remained unclear. Therefore, six N-nitrosamines were investigated in dried aquatic products in this study. The target analytes were quantified by LC-MS/MS coupled with the steam distillation. Among six N-nitrosamines, N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) was detected in 77.8% (154/198) of the samples with an average level of 5.84 μg/kg and 28.8% of the tested samples exceeded the limit set in Chinese National Standard for Food Safety 2762–2017. Furthermore, N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA) was only detected in four samples and no other classes of N-nitrosamines were detected. Expanding upon this discovery, we further evaluated the carcinogenic risk of NDMA exposure in dried aquatic products via the margin of exposure (MOE) approach. The average intake of NDMA from dried aquatic products ranged from 1.90 to 2.04 ng/kg. bw/day for the male adults and from 3.17 to 4.84 ng/kg. bw/day for the male adolescents. Based on the average exposure of NDMA, the MOE value indicated no potential carcinogenic risks for the adults. However, the MOE value for the adolescents was significantly lower than 10,000, indicating the potential carcinogenic risks. For the 95th percentile highly exposed population, their MOE values were also below 10,000, indicating an associated carcinogenic risk for all age groups. Therefore, there is an urgent need to decrease or even eliminate the contamination of NDMA in dried aquatic products. •Investigate the occurrence of N-nitrosamines in aquatic products on a large scale.•Assess the dietary exposure of N-nitrosodimethylamine.•Report the risk of N-Nitrosodimethylamine based on bench mark dose limit and margin of exposure.