Exposure of consumers to morphine from poppy seeds in Hungary

Andrea Zentai (1) , Judit Sali (1) , Maria Szeitzne-Szabo (1) , Istvan Jozsef Szabo (1) , Arpad Ambrus (2)

1 Hungarian Food Safety Office
2 Hungarian Food Safety Office

Poppy seed containing foods are popular dishes in Hungary and some other Central-European countries. The alkaloids of poppy are used in the production of medicines. Poppy seeds used as food may also contain considerable amounts of alkaloids, which raise the question of food safety. Morphine, codeine, thebaine and noscapine concentrations of poppy seed samples from the time period 2001-2010, and consumption data from two Hungarian surveys, carried out in 2003 and 2009 were evaluated. Exposure calculations were made for morphine intake both by point estimate and probabilistic methods, and the uncertainty of the calculated values was estimated. The point estimate for the acute consumer exposure, calculated using the 97.5 percentiles of morphine concentration and of poppy seed consumption and taking into account the reduction of morphine content by processing, was 78.64 µg(kgbw)^-1day^-1 for adults, and 116.90 µg(kgbw)^-1day^-1 for children. Based on probabilistic estimations, the 97.5 and 99 percentile exposures ranged between 18.3-25.4 and 25.6-47.4 µg(kgbw)^-1day^-1 for adults, and 32.9 and 66.4 µg(kgbw)^-1day^-1 for children, respectively. As no effect level (NOEL) has not been established, the significance of exposure could not be assessed.

Mots clés: Life Sciences

Andrea Zentai, Judit Sali, Maria Szeitzne-Szabo, Istvan Jozsef Szabo, Arpad Ambrus. Exposure of consumers to morphine from poppy seeds in Hungary. Food Additives and Contaminants, 2011, pp.1. ⟨10.1080/19440049.2011.636762⟩. ⟨hal-00765017⟩