Assessment of the Bioaccessibility of Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers in Foods and the Correlations of the Bioaccessibility with Nutrient Contents

Bioaccessibility of a contaminant in foods is the fraction of the contaminant mobilized from the food matrices during gastrointestinal digestion. In the present paper, the bioaccessibility of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in 13 types of foods, including fish, meat, rice, flour, and vegetables, was determined using an in vitro digestion method. The bioaccessibility obtained ranged from 2.6% to 41.3%. It was found that the bioaccessibility of PBDEs exhibited positive correlations with fat and carbohydrate contents and negative correlations with protein and dietary fiber contents in the foods. Fat was the most important factor affecting the bioaccessibility of PBDEs. The mechanism underlying the correlations was discussed in view of partition of PBDEs between liquid and solid phases. To our knowledge, this is the first article systematically investigating the bioaccessibility of PBDEs in foods and demonstrating the influence of the food constituents on the bioaccessibility of PBDEs.