Improving infant food safety by avoiding hazards of chemical mixture effects using novel integrated methods based on bioassays and analytical chemistry

Humans, including infants are exposed to complex mixtures of anthropogenic chemicals, and food is a major exposure route. Current risk assessment, however, typically does not evaluate mixture toxicity but rather focuses on single chemical exposure scenarios. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence that combined exposures to chemicals is involved in the etiology of major human diseases, and that infants are often more vulnerable than adults. Surprisingly hardly any efficient practical tools and guidelines have been defined to adequately assess mixture effects of food. Evaluation of levels of mixtures of dioxins and related compounds are a notable exception, although also in that area novel insights warrant reevaluation of the relevant compounds to be included in evaluation. Novel approaches are needed, since our knowledge on the toxicity of chemicals is lagging behind and even most of the industrial chemicals that are in common use have undergone no or limited safety testing, while the situation with natural compounds in food is even more challenging. Novel untargeted chemical analytical techniques and quantitative bioanalytical techniques that respond to toxic chemicals independent of prior knowledge on their structure or toxicity can be used to increase the knowledge on chemical mixtures. We discuss the complementarities between these bio- and chemical analytical methods that can be used in an integrated system to improve infant food safety by avoiding hazards of chemical mixture effects.