KEYNOTE Trend of cancer risk of Chinese inhabitants to dioxins due to changes in their dietary patterns from 1980 to 2009

Rapid economic development and increasing personal income over the last three decades has been leading to perhaps one of the most significant changes in food patterns in Chinese population in human history. Food ingestion is a... [ view full abstract ]

Rapid economic development and increasing personal income over the last three decades has been leading to perhaps one of the most significant changes in food patterns in Chinese population in human history. Food ingestion is a major route for human exposure and body burden to dioxins. We estimated the potential influence of changes in dietary patterns in Chinese population on human health risk to 2,3,7,8-TCDD (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin) over the last three decades. We performed multiple modeling scenario investigations to discriminate the contribution of 2,3,7,8-TCDD emissions and changes in dietary patterns to the cancer risks (CR) to dioxins. Results showed that changes in dietary patterns and structure, featured by decreasing consumption of total grain (including all unprocessed grains) and vegetables and increasing intake of animal-derived foodstuffs, caused increasing CR from 7.3×10-8 in 1980 to 1.1×10-7 in 2009. Varying dietary patterns contributed 17% to the CR of Chinese population in 2009 under the fixed emission in 1980. The CR to 2,3,7,8-TCDD in urban and eastern China residents was higher considerably than those who lived in rural area and western China, attributable to higher emissions, household income, and greater intake of animal-derived foodstuffs in urban and eastern China inhabitants. On the other hand, more rapid increasing trend of the cancer risk was found in rural residents due to their more rapid increase in the consumption of fat-dominated foods as compared with urban residents.