Heavy Metals in Grains from Jilin Province, China and Human Health Risk .

Heavy metals (HMs) are an indispensable part of industrial and agricultural development. As the cradle of China's industry and an important province for agricultural production, Jilin Province has been concerned about the pollution of HMs in the local environment and grains. In this paper, we chose four HMs that are more harmful to humans: inorganic arsenic (iAs), cadmium (Cd), methylmercury (MeHg) and lead (Pb), the content of them in 13 kinds of grains were detected through graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry and liquid chromatography-atomic fluorescence spectrometry, and compared with the limit value of national standards. To evaluate potential risk to human health, target hazard quotient (THQ) and hazard index (HI) were employed. The detection rates of the four HMs were high to low: Cd (48%)>iAs (20.8%)>MeHg (4.6%)>Pb (3%), most of the HMs content are far below the limit of national standards. The values of THQ and HI were both smaller than 1. It is concluded that the pollution of HMs in grains in Jilin Province is not serious and people are less at risk from HMs in grains.