FDA Posts Acrylamide Update

Earlier this week, FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) announced that it recently added additional data to its informational acrylamide website (see http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/acrydat2.html).

Acrylamide has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals at high doses, and is therefore is considered a possible human carcinogen. The chemical can form in certain carbohydrate-rich foods during high-temperature cooking processes, including frying and baking.

In 2002, researchers at the Swedish National Food Administration, Uppsala, Sweden, and Stockholm University detected acrylamide in a variety of fried and oven-baked foods (see http://www.slv.se/templates/SLV_DocumentList.aspx?id=4529). CFSAN then initiated a broad range of surveillance and research activities related to acrylamide.

The acrylamide levels detected in approximately 400 food samples collected as part of FDA's Total Diet Study Program have been added to CFSAN's website. The site now includes acrylamide data for approximately 2,500 samples. CFSAN's "2006 Exposure Assessment for Acrylamide," based on the aforementioned 2,500 samples, has also recently been posted on the CFSAN website at http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/acryexpo.html.

CFSAN reports that the 2006 Exposure Assessment estimated mean intake of acrylamide for U.S. consumers--ages two and over--is 0.4 microgram per kilogram of body weight per day, the same mean intake of acrylamide for U.S. consumers reported following the 2003 and 2004 exposure assessments. The report summary notes that 100% of the U.S. population consumes some level of acrylamide as part of their diet.