Pharmacokinetic model of daily selenium intake from contaminated seafood in Taiwan

Contaminated seafood has been reported as an important source of human exposure to metals in Taiwan. Seafood represents a non-negligible source of selenium in the human diet. This study was designed to determine the concentration of selenium in different types of seafood and predict the concentration of selenium in the blood of Taiwanese using a one-compartment steady-state pharmacokinetic (PK) model. Samples involved three subgroups, including fish, crustaceans and bivalve molluscs. Quantitative analysis for selenium was performed using an ICP-AES (Perkin Elmer) instrument. Selenium concentrations in seafood ranged from 0.63 to 2.01 μg/g wet wt. The highest selenium concentration found in fish was 2.01±0.36 μg/g wet wt in Salmo salar Linnaeus. In general, selenium concentration increased in the order of bivalve molluscs