title: Risk assessment of dietary exposure to tryptamine for the Austrian population.
abstract: Tryptamine acts as a neuromodulator and vasoactive agent in the human body. Dose-response data on dietary tryptamine are scarce and neither a toxicological threshold value nor tolerable levels in foods have been established so far. This paper reviews dose-response characteristics and toxicological effects of tryptamine as well as tryptamine contents in food, estimates dietary exposure of Austrian consumers, and calculates risk-based maximum tolerable limits for food categories. A dose without effect of 8 mg kg-1body weight day-1was derived from literature data. Dietary exposure via fish/seafood, beer, cheese and meat products was estimated for Austrian schoolchildren, female and male consumers, based on 543 food samples analysed in Austria 2010-15 and on food consumption data from 2008. Even worst-case estimates based on very high tryptamine contents reported in the literature did not exceed 5.9 mg kg-1body weight day-1, and thus were below the dose without effect. Maximum tolerable levels for food commodities were calculated for high-consumption scenarios (95th percentile of female Austrian consumers). For fresh/cooked fish, preserved fish, cheese, raw sausage, condiments, sauerkraut and fermented tofu, maximum tolerable levels were 1650, 3200, 2840, 4800, 14,120, 1740 and 2400 mg kg-1, respectively. For beer, the maximum tolerable limit of 65 mg kg-1included an uncertainty factor of 10. None of the Austrian occurrence data exceeded these levels (in fact, only 3.3% of samples demonstrated measurable amounts of tryptamine), and just one report was found in the literature on a raw fish sample exceeding the respective tolerable level. In sum, dietary intake of tryptamine should not cause adverse health effects in healthy individuals. The assessment did not take into account the combined effects of simultaneously ingested biogenic amines, and increased susceptibility to tryptamine, e.g., due to reduced monoamine oxidase activity.
authors.affiliation: a Business Area Data, Statistics & Risk Assessment , Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety , Vienna , Austria.
authors.forename: Nadja
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wüst
authors.affiliation: a Business Area Data, Statistics & Risk Assessment , Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety , Vienna , Austria.
authors.forename: Elke
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rauscher-Gabernig
authors.affiliation: a Business Area Data, Statistics & Risk Assessment , Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety , Vienna , Austria.
authors.forename: Johann
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Steinwider
authors.affiliation: b Institute of Meat Hygiene, Meat Technology and Food Science , University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna , Vienna , Austria.
authors.forename: Friedrich
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bauer
authors.affiliation: b Institute of Meat Hygiene, Meat Technology and Food Science , University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna , Vienna , Austria.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Paulsen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001317:Austria; D002648:Child; D004032:Diet; D005260:Female; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D020714:Maximum Tolerated Dose; D008875:Middle Aged; D018570:Risk Assessment; D014363:Tryptamines / Q000032:analysis* / Q000378:metabolism; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D014363:Tryptamines
keywords: Tryptamine; beer; biogenic amines; cheese; exposure; exposure assessment; fish and fish products; risk assessment; sausage