Dietary intake and health risk assessment of lead and cadmium in green tea from Morocco.

Green tea is one of the most widely consumed beverages worldwide, also in Morocco. It has numerous health benefits due to its various bioactive compounds. However, there are concerns about the contamination of green tea by some toxic heavy metals, such as lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd). The aim of this study was to investigate the contamination levels of Pb and Cd in green tea samples taken from six different brands in Morocco by using graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. Cd was detected in 59 out of 76 samples in the range of 0.002–0.743 μg/g, accounting for 77.63% of the analyzed samples, with a mean value of 0.121 ± 0.006 μg/g. For the rest of the samples (22.37%), Cd were below the limit of detection (LOD). For Pb, 67 samples (88.16%) were reported to have Pb levels ranging from 0.002 to 1.155 μg/g, with a mean value of 0.159 ± 0.006 μg/g. For the remaining samples (11.84%), Pb levels were < LOD. Samples from brand D had the highest content of Pb (1.145 μg/g) and Cd (0.728 μg/g) among the samples analyzed. Pb levels in all green tea samples were far below the standard limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO) (10 μg/g) and China (5 μg/g). However, for Cd levels, 3 green tea samples exceeded the recommended maximum limit (0.3 μg/g) set by WHO. Both the Target Hazard Quotient (THQ) values for individual elements and the Hazard Index (HI) values for Cd and Pb were far below 1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]