Probabilistic health risk assessment of exposure to carcinogens of Chinese family cooking and influence analysis of cooking factors

Abstract Cooking oil fume (COF) have adverse health effects for people. A probabilistic health risk assessment model with risk parameters as random variables considering the differences in exposure concentration and exposure time of different cooking event was proposed to assess the inhalational incremental lifetime cancer risk (ILCR). The exposure of carcinogens such as benzene, formaldehyde, PM2.5-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PPAHs) and PM2.5-bound heavy metals (PHMs) of Chinese family cooking was studied and the exposure concentrations of carcinogens were predicted by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). In addition, the influence of five key cooking factors (cooking method, the weight of ingredients (meat and vegetables), type of meat, ratio of meat to vegetables, and type of oil) that affect the generation of COF was explored. The ILCR of COF is assessed comprehensively in present study by the probabilistic health risk assessment model. The result showed that the sum of the risks of assessed carcinogens (total ILCR of COF) determined by Monte Carlo simulation method with a 95% confidence interval (95%CI) is 2.45 × 10−4 to 1.61 × 10−3, which far exceeds the acceptable limit of 1.00 × 10−6. Generally, the ILCR of assessed carcinogens decreases in the following order: PHMs [ILCR (95%CI): 2.08 × 10−4 to 1.54 × 10−3] > formaldehyde [ILCR (95%CI): 9.04 × 10−6 to 6.87 × 10−5] and PPAHs [ILCR (95%CI): 5.97 × 10−6 to 4.51 × 10−5] > benzene [ILCR (95%CI): 2.99 × 10−7 to 3.00 × 10−6]. The results indicated that more attention should be paid to the ILCR of PM2.5. Cooking method significantly affect the ILCR of carcinogens in COF excluding formaldehyde. The ILCRs of COF from water-based cooking methods are greater than those of oil-based cooking ones.