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Widely consumed thermally processed corn-based foods can have a great contribution to acrylamide dietary intake, thus bearing a high public health risk and requiring attention and application of strategies for its reduction. This paper reviews the literature on the acrylamide content of corn-based food products present in the market around the world. The potential of corn for acrylamide formation due to its content of free asparagine and reducing sugars is described. Human exposure to acrylamide from corn-based foods is also discussed. The content of acrylamide in corn/tortilla chips, popcorn, and corn flakes, as widely consumed products all over the world, is reported in the literature to be between 5 and 6360 µg/kg, between

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Seabirds are exposed to a variety of environmental contaminants in the Arctic. While the persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity of some groups of contaminants have been well-studied in seabirds since the 1970s, there is less known about polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs). With increased vessel traffic, and potential oil and gas development in the Arctic region, there is a need to understand existing PAC exposure in biota against which to compare potential effects of anticipated increases of PACs in the marine region. Thick-billed murres (Uria lomvia) and northern fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) collected in the Baffin Bay - Davis Strait region during the International Polar Year (IPY; 2007-08), and during a recent Strategic Environmental Assessment (2018; SEA) were examined for hepatic PAC concentrations. We found that fulmars generally had higher concentrations of PACs than the murres, but murres and fulmars sampled in 2007/08 had higher concentrations of most groups of PACs compared to birds from 2018. The one exception to this pattern was that the sum of the alkylated congeners of the heterocyclic aromatic compounds containing a sulfur atom (dibenzothiophene; ΣAHET) was significantly higher in murres in the more recent sampling period (2018) as compared to 2007/08. ΣAHETs likely reflect recent exposure to more refined petroleum products associated with small boats, such as diesel, gasoline and motor oil. This work highlights the need for longitudinal studies on PAC concentrations in biota for us to gain a better understanding of how Arctic biota are exposed to this group of contaminants, and the potential deleterious effects associated with PACs.

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Acrylamide (AA), a molecule which potentially increases the risk of developing cancer, is easily formed in food rich in carbohydrates, such as biscuits, wafers, and breakfast cereals, at temperatures above 120 °C. Thus, the need to detect and quantify the AA content in processed foodstuffs is eminent, in order to delineate the limits and mitigation strategies. This work reports the development and validation of a high-resolution mass spectrometry-based methodology for identification and quantification of AA in specific food matrices of biscuits, by using LC-MS with electrospray ionization and Orbitrap as the mass analyser. The developed analytical method showed good repeatability (RSDr 11.1%) and 3.55 and 11.8 µg kg-1 as limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ), respectively. The choice of multiplexed targeted-SIM mode (t-SIM) for AA and AA-d3 isolated ions provided enhanced detection sensitivity, as demonstrated in this work. Statistical processing of data was performed in order to compare the AA levels with several production parameters, such as time/cooking temperature, placement on the cooking conveyor belt, color, and moisture for different biscuits. The composition of the raw materials was statistically the most correlated factor with the AA content when all samples are considered. The statistical treatment presented herein enables an important prediction of factors influencing AA formation in biscuits contributing to putting in place effective mitigation strategies.