Human Health Risk Prospecting Against Lead, Chromium, and Cadmium in Consumed Herbal Snuffs in Sokoto State, Nigeria

Abstract

Nowadays, there is much attention on the utilization of herbal medicines among many parts of the world including Sokoto. However, there are concerns that the current trend in pollution could lead to an uptake of lead, cadmium and chromium by herbal plants and in turn can harm the consumers. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to assess cadmium, chromium, and lead in some herbal snuffs consumed in Sokoto, Nigeria and estimate human health risk. Standard methods and materials of analytical grade were used for this work. The assessed concentrations (p < 0.05) of Cd, Cr, and Pb in some common herbal snuffs consumed in Sokoto, Nigeria show ranges of Cd, Cr, and Pb respectively as follows: 0.07± 0.001 to 0.13 ± 0.005 ppm, 0.06 ± 0.001 to 0.13 ± 0.006 ppm, and 0.03 ± 0.001 to 0.11 ± 0.005 ppm respectively. Health risk assessment of these concentrations shows that all the values are below 1 and hence can only pose little or naught non-cancer/cancer risk to the consumers. However, people need to take caveat in consumption of herbal stuffs and agencies need to routinely check for quality of these stuffs to safeguard public health.

Keywords

• Herbal snuff, lead, cadmium, chromium, risk, plant, food
• cadmium
• risk
• food
• herbal snuff

Supporting Institution

No funding was received by the authors.

Ethical Statement

The authors have read, understood, and complied as applicable with the statement on "Ethical responsibilities of Authors" as found in the Instructions for Authors”.

Thanks

The authors are grateful to the Management of Shehu Shagari University of Education Sokoto, and the Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning Sokoto State, Dr. Abubakar Muhammad Zayyana for their support during carrying out this work.

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