Potential Health Risk of Aluminum in Four Camellia sinensis Cultivars and Its Content as a Function of Leaf Position

Huijuan Yang, Yan Chen, Jennifer M. Shido, Randall T. Hamasaki, Wayne T. Iwaoka, Stuart T. Nakamoto, Haiyan Wang () and Qing X. Li ()
Additional contact information
Huijuan Yang: College of Tobacco Science, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450002, China
Yan Chen: Key Laboratory of Nuclear Agricultural Sciences of Ministry of Agriculture and Zhejiang Province, Institute of Nuclear Agricultural Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Jennifer M. Shido: Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Randall T. Hamasaki: Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Wayne T. Iwaoka: Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Stuart T. Nakamoto: Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Haiyan Wang: Key Laboratory of Nuclear Agricultural Sciences of Ministry of Agriculture and Zhejiang Province, Institute of Nuclear Agricultural Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Qing X. Li: Department of Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-9

Abstract: Tea plants can accumulate aluminum (Al) in their leaves to a greater extent than most other edible plants. Few studies, however, address the Al concentration in leaves at different positions, which is important information for tea quality control. Leaves from four different cultivars of Camellia sinensis L. grown in Hawaii were analyzed for Al concentrations at 10 different leaf positions. Each cultivar was harvested in the winter and summer to determine seasonal variations of Al concentrations in the leaves. The results showed that Al concentrations in the winter leaves were an average of 1.2-fold higher than those in the summer leaves, although the seasonal variations were not statistically significant. The total Al concentration of successively lower leaves showed an exponential increase (R 2 ≥ 0.900) for all four cultivars in the summer season, whereas those of the winter leaves fit a bi-phase linear regression (R 2 ≥ 0.968). The regression of the Al concentrations against the top-5 leaf positions in the winter season fit one linear regression, while that against leaf positions 6–11 fit another linear regression. The average Al concentrations between the third leaf and the shoot plus first two leaves increased approximately 2.7-fold and 1.9-fold for all cultivars in the winter and summer months, respectively. The Al concentrations in the rest of the leaves increased approximately 1.5-fold in a sequential order. The target hazard quotient being between 1.69 × 10 −2 and 5.06 × 10 −1 in the tea leaf samples of the four cultivars in Hawaii were all less than 1, suggesting negligible health risks for consumers. The results of this study may be useful for directing harvest practices and estimating tea quality.

Keywords: aluminum; Camellia sinensis; leaf position; health risk; tea (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/11952/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/11952/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:19:p:11952-:d:921286

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().