Heavy metal testing?

Some metals are also essential to the human body, helping to transport oxygen from the lungs to the tissues; promote the metabolism of substances in the body, stimulating damaged cells to recover; is a catalyst that stimulates the absorption of vitamins; strengthen bones, strengthen heart, stabilize blood pressure,…

These heavy metals are toxic to most living organisms when concentrations are exceeded. Accumulating heavy metals over a long period of time can lead to many harmful effects such as:

• Lead has a very low acute toxicity. The most essential long-term effects are its neurotoxicity for infants and its effects on the cardiovascular tissue of adults.
• Cadmium is primarily nephrotoxic and may cause bone demineralization.
• Mercury mainly occurs as methyl mercury in fish and seafood and is extremely toxic to the nervous system. Other foods usually contain less toxic inorganic mercury.
• Arsenic also occurs in organic and inorganic compounds, of which the latter is clearly more toxic and may cause cancer of the skin, lungs, and urinary tract.

Regulations to control heavy metal content in food

Each country has regulations on the maximum amount of toxic heavy metals in food, for example:

• QCVN 8-2:2011/BYT limits heavy metal pollution in food
• QCVN 12-1:2011/BYT, QCVN 12-2:2011/BYT, QCVN 12-3:2011/BYT QCVN 12-4:2015/BYT regulate metals in packaging and food contact materials such as plastic, rubber, metal, glass, ceramic
• QCVN 01:2018/BYT National technical regulation on quality of clean water used for domestic purposes
• QCVN 03-MT:2015/BTNMT Limit of heavy metals in soil
• EU regulation on heavy metals in food: Commission Regulation (EC) No 1881/2006 of 19 December 2006 setting maximum levels for certain contaminants in foodstuffs (Text with EEA relevance)
• New EU regulation on Lead (Pb), Cadmium (Cd) content in food: Commission Regulation (EU) 2021/1317 of 9 August 2021 amending Regulation (EC) No 1881/2006 as regards maximum levels of lead in certain foodstuffs (Text with EEA relevance)

Heavy metal testing

Eurofins Food and Feed Testing in Vietnam is able to analyze most metals contained in national and international regulations. Meet a variety of food, feed and environmental samples.

With modern equipment such as AAS, ICP-MS, techniques GF-AAS, F-AAS, CV-AAS, HG-AS for heavy metal testing, and a team of experienced technicians develop methods that meet national and international standards such as ISO, AOAC, TCVN, etc.

Besides the usual criteria (arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury,...) we can also analyze difficult criteria, based on complex samples:

• Chromium (Cr), Selenium (Se), Molybdenum (Mo), Iodine (I) in milk
• Inorganic Arsenic, Organic Arsenic in Fish Sauce and Meat
• Methyl mercury in food