Dietary intake of toxic and essential trace elements by the children and parents living in Tokyo Metropolitan Area, Japan

This study estimated the dietary intakes of 25 pairs of Japanese children and their parents to 12 toxic and essential trace elements using 7-day duplicate diet composites. The estimated intakes of lead (children 5.34 mg day(-1), adults 6.74 mg day(-1)) and tin (162 and 152 mg day(-1)) were below tolerable limits, but large difference in aluminium intakes (7.32 and 12.1 mg day(-1)) among the subjects warranted further investigations. Intakes of cadmium in both children and adults (13.2 and 15.9 mg day(-1)) were high, but a low uranium (U) intake was observed (0.593 and 0.587 mu g day(-1)). Intakes of copper (567 and 784 mg day(-1)), manganese (1.56 and 2.72 mg day(-1)), zinc (4.93 and 6.75 mg day(-1)), and molybdenum (103 and 131 mg day(-1)) were close to the recommended values. Concentrations of chromium, nickel and selenium were lower than the detection limits in most cases.