Few studies reported the extent of heavy metal accumulation in traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs). Currently, oral bioaccessibility of lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), arsenic (As), mercury (Hg), and copper (Cu) present in traditional animal medicines was investigated with physiologically based extraction test-extracted in vitro model. We are the first to develop a health risk assessment strategy by combinational analysis of bioaccessible heavy metal levels to calculate target hazard quotient (THQ), target hazard index (THI) and cancer risk (CR), which has capacity to evaluate the heavy metal associated heath risk of traditional animal medicines. To precisely acquire a realistic risk assessment, questionnaire data was adopted to measure the frequency and duration of the exposure to traditional animal medicines, and the safety factor was highlighted as well. Our data revealed that the bioaccessibility of Hg was the lowest among the five heavy metals. After the adjustment with the bioaccessibility of each heavy metal to target hazard index (THI) values, excitingly, the results manifested that the consumption of traditional animal medicines might not exert an unacceptable health risk in a broad community. In addition, the CR values of As and Pb indicated that the risk of developing cancers was quite lower than their acceptable levels in the clinic.
Keywords: Bioaccessibility; Health risk; Heavy metals; PBET; Traditional animal medicines.