Exposure to ambient air pollution has been linked with adverse health outcomes of the circulatory and nervous systems. Given that falls are closely related to circulatory and nervous health, we hypothesize that air pollution may adversely affect fall-related injury. We employed Wave 1 data from 36,662 participants aged ≥50 years in WHO's Study on Global AGEing and Adult Health in six low- and middle-income countries. Ambient annual concentration of PM2.5 was estimated using satellite data. A three-level logistic regression model was applied to examine the long-term association between ambient PM2.5 and the prevalence of fall-related injury, and associated disease burden, as well as the potential effect modification of consumption of fruit and vegetables. Ambient PM2.5 was found to be significantly associated with the risk of fall-related injury. Each 10 μg/m3 increase corresponded to 18% (OR = 1.18, 95% CI: 1.09, 1.28) increase in fall-related injury after adjusting for various covariates. The association was relatively stronger among participants with lower consumption of fruit (OR = 1.22, 95% CI: 1.12, 1.33) than higher consumption (OR = 1.06, 95% CI: 0.92, 1.23), and among those with lower vegetable consumption (OR = 1.18, 95% CI: 1.08, 1.28) than higher consumption (OR = 1.08, 95% CI: 0.91, 1.27). Our study suggests that ambient PM2.5 may be one risk factor for fall-related injury and that higher consumption of fruit and vegetables could alleviate this effect.

China accounts for more than half of the world's vegetable production, and identifying the contribution of vegetable production to nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions in China is therefore important. We performed a meta-analysis that included 153 field measurements of N₂O emissions from 21 field studies in China. Our goal was to quantify N₂O emissions and fertilizer nitrogen (N) based-emission factors (EFs) in Chinese vegetable systems and to clarify the effects of rates and types of N fertilizer in both open-field and greenhouse systems. The results indicated that the intensive vegetable systems in China had an average N₂O emission of 3.91 kg N₂O-N ha⁻¹ and an EF of 0.69%. Although the EF was lower than the IPCC default value of 1.0%, the average N₂O emission was generally greater than in other cropping systems due to greater input of N fertilizers. The EFs were similar in greenhouse vs. open-field systems but N₂O emissions were about 1.4 times greater in greenhouses. The EFs were not affected by N rate, but N₂O emissions for both open-field and greenhouse systems increased with N rate. The total and fertilizer-induced N₂O emissions, as well as EFs, were unaffected by the type of fertilizers in greenhouse system under same N rates. In addition to providing basic information about N₂O emissions from Chinese vegetable systems, the results suggest that N₂O emissions could be reduced without reducing yields by treating vegetable systems in China with a combination of synthetic N fertilizer and manure at optimized economic rates.

Foodstuffs may be contaminated by organophosphate esters (OPEs) and become an important source of human exposure since OPEs are ubiquitous in the environment. In the present study, 10 OPEs were analyzed in various food matrices collected from a city in Eastern China including chicken, pork, fishes, vegetables, tofu, eggs, milk and cereals. The concentrations of Σ₁₀OPEs ranged from 1.1 to 9.6 ng g⁻¹ fresh weight (fw) in the foodstuffs. Cereals had the highest residual level of total OPEs with a mean value of 5.7 ng g⁻¹ fw. Tris(2-ethylhexyl) phosphate was detected in all foodstuff samples and showed the highest median residual concentration of 1.3 ng g⁻¹ fw among the OPE analogs. The daily dietary intake of OPEs was calculated as 3.6 and 2.4 μg d⁻¹ for adults and children. Cereals were identified as the major contributor to the total OPEs among different types of foodstuffs. Preliminary exposure assessment revealed that the current non-cancer health risks of OPEs via dietary intake were in the range of 10⁻⁵-10⁻³, indicating low risk levels. Moreover, the hazard index of OPEs indicated that the risk for children (3 × 10⁻³) was higher than adults (2 × 10⁻³).

Potentially toxic elements are widespread soil contaminants, whose occurrence could entail a concern for human health upon ingestion of fruit and vegetables harvested in a polluted area. This work set out to evaluate the concentrations of lead and cadmium as well as the levels of thirteen heavy metals for which a limit value is yet to be established by the food safety authorities, in order to perform a risk characterization related to the dietary intake of these metals and to provide a scientific opinion with wider relevance in the light of current worldwide regulatory issues. The sampling consisted of fruit and vegetables grown in a potentially contaminated area of southern Italy due to the illegal dump of hazardous wastes. An evaluation of the dietary exposure through the calculation of the Hazard Index (HI), the Maximum Cumulative Ratio (MCR) and the Target Cancer Risk (TCR) was adopted to this end. The results revealed that about the 30% of samples showed quantifiable levels of chemicals and no significant difference emerged between the potentially polluted area and the nearby cities that were selected as a control landfill site. The overall risk characterization for non-carcinogenic endpoints showed that the HI did not reach unsafe values, except for a small number of samples mainly because of aberrant occurrences and, in any case, the cumulative toxicity was mainly driven by thallium and vanadium. As far as the carcinogenic effects of arsenic are concerned, the distribution of TCR values broadly lay below the safety threshold; a certain percentage of data, however, exceeded this limit and should be taken into account for the enforcement of future regulatory thresholds.

Greenhouse vegetable production (GVP) is the major type of vegetable production in China. However, dietary exposure of heavy metals through vegetable consumption has been identified as a potential risk to human health. To ensure safety of vegetables, soil threshold values (STVs) of cadmium (Cd) in GVP systems were assessed based on analysis of soil-vegetable Cd contents in relation to human health risk. Contents of Cd were determined in 324 sampled soil-vegetable pairs from five GVP systems in three Chinese provinces. Soil Cd contents ranged from 0.07 to 1.32 mg kg−1, with 17.9% of sampled soils exceeding current Chinese threshold values. Vegetable Cd contents ranged from 0.0003 to 0.546 mg kg−1, with 8.6% exceeding permissible maxima. Vegetable type and soil pH significantly affected Cd transfer from soil to vegetable with lower transfer at neutral (6.5 < pH ≤ 7.5) to alkaline (pH > 7.5) soils and uptake decreasing in the order: Leafy > rootstalk > fruit. Consequently, both soil pH and vegetable type should be taken into consideration as suggested when revising current STVs for Cd in GVP systems in order to capture the health risk correctly and ensure safe vegetable consumption.

Microplastics are emerging pollutants which have been extensively detected in water environments. However, little is known about microplastic pollution in soil environments. In this study, we investigated microplastics and mesoplastics in farmland soils from twenty vegetable fields around the suburbs of Shanghai. In each site, three duplicate soil samples were collected from shallow (0–3 cm) and deep soils (3–6 cm), respectively. Microplastics (sizes of 20 μm - 5 mm) and mesoplastics (5 mm - 2 cm) were detected using methods of density extraction, 30% H₂O₂ digestion and micro-fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The abundance of microplastics was 78.00 ± 12.91 and 62.50 ± 12.97 items kg⁻¹ in shallow and deep soils, respectively. While, mesoplastics were found with abundance of 6.75 ± 1.51 and 3.25 ± 1.04 items kg⁻¹ in shallow and deep soils. Among these micro(meso)plastics, 48.79% and 59.81% were in size of <1 mm in shallow and deep soils. The main morphotypes of microplastics included fiber, fragment and film, mostly in color of black or transparent. Moreover, we found that topsoil contained higher concentrations and larger sizes of micro(meso)plastics than deep soil. In addition, the vast majority of micro(meso)plastics were polypropylene (50.51%) and polyethylene (43.43%). This study reveals occurrence and characteristics of microplastic pollution in typical farmland soils. It provides important data for subsequent research on microplatics in the terrestrial ecosystem.

Pregnancy is a period when the mother and her offspring are susceptible to the toxic effects of metals. We investigated associations of intake of frequently consumed foods with urinary metals concentrations among pregnant women in the Pacific Northwest. We measured urinary cadmium (U-Cd), arsenic (U-As) and molybdenum (U-Mo) concentrations from spot urine samples in early pregnancy (15 weeks of gestation, on average) among 558 women from Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. We assessed periconceptional dietary intake using a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). We also determined early pregnancy zinc concentrations in serum. Statistical analyses involved multivariable linear regression models, adjusted for smoking status, age, race/ethnicity, multivitamin and supplement use, education, estimated total energy intake, and gravidity. The geometric mean and range in μg/g creatinine for U-Cd, U-As and U-Mo were 0.29 (0.1–8.2), 18.95 (3–550), and 72.1 (15–467), respectively. U-Cd was positively associated with dietary zinc intake (P-value = 0.004) and serum zinc (P-value<0.001) while it was negatively associated with coffee intake (P-value = 0.03). U-As was positively associated with dietary fish [(Lean fish, fatty fish, shellfish and non-fried fish) (P-values<0.01)], selenium (P-value = 0.004), zinc (P-value = 0.017), vegetables (P-value = 0.004), and low-fat yogurt (P-value = 0.03). Women who reported higher intake of dietary magnesium (Mg)(P-value = 0.04), insoluble fiber (P-value = 0.03), and low-fat yogurt (P-value = 0.04) had higher U-Mo concentrations. Our study suggests that vegetables, fish, fiber and yogurt might be significant dietary sources of metals. Future studies aimed at investigating the risk of exposure to metals from other various food sources among reproductive-age and pregnant women are needed.

Feed intake, for non-smokers, is the first route of contamination to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are potentially toxic compounds via ingestion. Investigations are focused on the presence of PAHs in fruits and vegetables. Transfer of PAHs can occur from air and soil during cultivation. They can also appear prior to consumption during storage, transport or cooking processes.Rather low amounts of PAHs are usually detected in raw fruits and vegetables. Quantities are between 0.01 and 0.5 μg kg⁻¹ (wet weight) for compounds classified as priority pollutants by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). However, several studies point out that concentrations of some PAHs can exceed 0.5 μg kg⁻¹ wet weight in diverse fruits and vegetables and even reach 5 μg kg⁻¹. Amounts can be very different depending on the surrounding area of the crops, the aromatic hydrocarbon, or even the product itself. PAHs content is usually higher for products grown near roadways or in urban regions than in rural areas. Trace level of compounds such as phenanthrene, fluoranthene and pyrene have been found in quite every raw fruit and vegetable. Relative high amounts of lighter PAHs such as naphthalene, acenaphthylene, and acenaphthene have been found in some of them.

Phytophthora capsici, an economically devastating oomycete pathogen, causes devastating disease epidemics on a wide range of vegetable plants and pose a grave threat to global vegetables production. Heavy metals and acid pH are newly co-occurring stresses to soil micro-organisms, but what can be expected for mycelia growth and virulence and how they injure the oomycetes (especially P. capsici) remains unknown. Here, the effects of different heavy metals (Cu²⁺, Cr²⁺, and Hg²⁺) on mycelia growth and virulence were investigated at different pHs (4.0 vs. 7.0) and the plausible molecular and physiological mechanisms were analyzed. In the present study, we compared the effective inhibition of different heavy metals (Cu²⁺, Cr²⁺, and Hg²⁺) and acid pH on a previously genome sequenced P. capsici virulent strain LT1534. Both stress factors independently affected its mycelia growth and sporulation. Next, we investigated whether ROS participated in the pH-inhibited mycelial growth, finding that the ROS scavenger, catalase (CAT), significantly inhibited the acid pH-induced ROS in mycelia. Additionally, because MAPK specially transmits different stress responsive signals in environment into cells, we employed CAT and a p38-MAPK pathway inhibitor to investigate ROS and p38-MAPK roles in heavy metal-inhibited mycelia growth at different pHs (4.0 vs. 7.0), finding that they significantly inhibited growth. Furthermore, ROS and p38-MAPK influenced the heavy metal-induced TBARS content, total antioxidant capacity (TAC), and CAT activity at different pHs, and also reduced the expression of infection-related laccases (PcLAC2) and an effector-related protein (PcNLP14). We propose that acid pH stress accelerates how heavy metals inhibit mycelium growth, sporulation, and virulence change in P. capsici, and posit that ROS and p38-MAPK function to regulate the molecular and physiological mechanisms underlying this toxicity. Although these stresses induce molecular and physiological challenges to oomycetes, much remains to be known the mechanisms dedicated to resolve these environmental stresses.

Selenium (Se) is an essential trace element for humans and animals, although controversial for different plant species. There exists a narrow line between essential, beneficial and toxic levels of Se to living organisms which greatly varies with Se speciation, as well as the type of living organisms. Therefore, it is crucial to monitor its solid- and solution-phase speciation, exposure levels and pathways to living organisms. Consumption of Se-laced food (cereals, vegetables, legumes and pulses) is the prime source of Se exposure to humans. Thus, it is imperative to assess the biogeochemical behavior of Se in soil-plant system with respect to applied levels and speciation, which ultimately affect Se status in humans. Based on available relevant literature, this review traces a plausible link among (i) Se levels, sources, speciation, bioavailability, and effect of soil chemical properties on selenium bioavailability/speciation in soil; (ii) role of different protein transporters in soil-root-shoot transfer of Se; and (iii) speciation, metabolism, phytotoxicity and detoxification of Se inside plants. The toxic and beneficial effects of Se to plants have been discussed with respect to speciation and toxic/deficient concentration of Se. We highlight the significance of various enzymatic (catalase, peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, ascorbate peroxidase, glutathione peroxidase) and non-enzymatic (phytochelatins and glutathione) antioxidants which help combat Se-induced overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The review also delineates Se accumulation in edible plant parts from soils containing low or high Se levels; elucidates associated health disorders or risks due to the consumption of Se-deficient or Se-rich foods; discusses the potential role of Se in different human disorders/diseases.