Assessment of contamination of Milk and Milk Products with Heavy Metals

Abstract

Milk and milk products are a significant part of healthy diet. However, contamination of milk can be dangerous and detrimental for the health of consumers. The safety of milk and milk products decreases with increasing concentration of toxic compounds and environmental pollutants. The study was aimed to investigate the contents of some heavy metals in 30 samples of commercially available milk and milk products (dahi, cheese, paneer, khoa and milk powder) collected from five different vendors, from Karnal district of Haryana (India) to know whether the intakes comply with the permissible levels for toxic elements. Mean concentration of all the heavy metals analyzed showed a range of 3.38-26.4, 3.16- 13.89, 3.77- 21.04 and 3.34- 10.68 ppb for cadmium, lead, arsenic and mercury, respectively. Results indicated that the content of cadmium was maximum in all the samples except for paneer, where mercury concentration was maximum.