Herbal medicines that are widely used worldwide are easily contaminated by pesticides and heavy metals, threatening human health. In this study, a modified QuEChERS pre-treatment method combined with HPLC/GC-MS/MS was established for the determination of 24 pesticide residues in Dendrobium candidum. The average recoveries of 24 pesticides in D. candidum were 76.9-110.0% with the relative standard deviation (RSD) of 0.28-11.40%, and their limits of detection (LOD) and limits of quantitation (LOQ) were 0.005-10 and 0.011-22 μg kg-1, respectively. The results showed that 83.33% of all samples had detected pesticide residues with the concentrations of 0.06-312.83 μg kg-1. Meanwhile, microwave digestion combined with ICP-MS was used to detect the residues of 8 heavy metals in D. candidum. The average recoveries of 8 heavy metals were 82.7-108.1% with an RSD of 1.4-8.0%, and their LOD and LOQ were 0.0001-0.05 mg kg-1 and 0.0003-0.2 mg kg-1, respectively. The results indicated that 8 heavy metals were all detected in all samples, and the highest concentration of Zn was 11.97 mg kg-1. Furthermore, the health risk assessment showed that the risk of the detected pesticides and heavy metals in samples to humans, specifically to the general population including adults and children, was acceptable.
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