Dietary exposure assessment using food consumption data is an obligate part of assessing the safety of food ingredients. The dietary exposure estimate is compared to an experimentally determined upper limit of safe exposure, or Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI). Recently, two food additives classified as emulsifiers, sodium carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and polysorbate 80 (P80), have received attention due to their potential putative adverse effects on gut microbiota. Currently, there are no published dietary exposure estimates for the United States population for CMC, P80, and other commonly used emulsifiers. The current investigation focused on the estimation of dietary exposure to seven emulsifiers: CMC, P80, lecithin, mono- and diglycerides (MDG), stearoyl lactylates (sodium stearoyl lactylate (SSL) and calcium stearoyl lactylate (CSL)), sucrose esters, and polyglycerol polyricinoleate (PGPR). Maximum use levels of these emulsifiers were obtained from publicly-available sources. Dietary exposure to these emulsifiers was estimated for the U.S. population (aged 2 years and older) for two time periods (1999–2002 and 2003–2010) using both 2-day food consumption data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), and 10–14 day food consumption data from the NPD Group, Inc. National Eating Trends-Nutrient Intake Database (NPD NET-NID). The present analysis indicated that the exposure to CMC is two to three times lower than lecithin and MDG; and the exposure to P80 is approximately half that of CMC. By examining two time periods (1999–2002 and 2003–2010), it was concluded that there is no evidence to suggest the exposure levels to emulsifiers have substantially increased during the time period examined. Our analyses indicate that the dietary exposure for these seven emulsifiers do not raise safety concerns at the current use levels.

Assessment of dietary exposure to emulsifiers of regulatory interest for the United States population

252nd National Meeting (2016)

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