food adulteration research paper

A Review on Food Adulteration Detection Techniques: Methodologies, Applications, and Challenges

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Rapid and accurate detection of Dendrobium officinale adulterated with lower-price species using NMR characteristic markers integrated with artificial neural network

• Original Paper
• Published: 09 May 2024

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• Kaiyan Gong 1   na1 ,
• Xiaoli Yin 1   na1 ,
• Na Ying 1 ,
• Mengjun Wu 1 ,
• Yuxin Lyu 1 ,
• Hong Zheng   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3401-721X 1 &
• Lingling Jiang 2 , 3  

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Dendrobium officinale ( D. officinale ) as a well-known herbal and functional food material is often adulterated with lower-price Dendrobium species. In this study, we aimed to develop an integrated method of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and artificial neural network (NMR-ANN) to identify and quantify the adulteration of D. officinale powder with other cheaper species. Microwave-assisted water extraction was selected as a time-saving and green method for sample preparation. The results indicate that the NMR-ANN method effectively quantified the adulteration rate of D. officinale powder with the root mean squared error (RMSE) of 4.92, mean absolute error (MAE) of 3.56 and coefficient of determination (R 2 ) of 0.98 in the model test phase and with the RMSE of 7.65, MAE of 6.30 and R 2 of 0.98 in the double-blinded test phase. The whole evaluation process can be done in 6 min and 5 s. Therefore, the NMR-ANN method can be used as a rapid, green and accurate tool for evaluating the quality of D. officinale or even other food materials.

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This study was supported by the 2022 Student Partnering with Faculty/Staff Research Program of Wenzhou-Kean University, China (No.: WKUSPS202238).

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Kaiyan Gong and Xiaoli Yin contributed equally to this work.

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School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, 325035, China

Kaiyan Gong, Xiaoli Yin, Na Ying, Mengjun Wu, Yuxin Lyu & Hong Zheng

College of Science and Technology, Wenzhou-Kean University, Wenzhou, 325060, China

Lingling Jiang

Wenzhou Municipal Key Laboratory for Applied Biomedical and Biopharmaceutical Informatics, Wenzhou-Kean University, Wenzhou, 325060, China

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Conceptualization: HZ and LLJ; Data curation: HZ; Formal analysis: HZ and KYG; Funding acquisition: LLJ; Investigation: KYG, NY, MJW and YXL; Methodology: KYG, NY, MJW and YXL; Project administration: LLJ; Resources: HZ; Supervision: HZ and LLJ; Visualization: KYG, XLY, HZ and LLJ; Writing - original draft: HZ and LLJ; Writing - review & editing: XLY, KYG, NY, MJW, YXL, HZ and LLJ.

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Correspondence to Hong Zheng or Lingling Jiang .

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Gong, K., Yin, X., Ying, N. et al. Rapid and accurate detection of Dendrobium officinale adulterated with lower-price species using NMR characteristic markers integrated with artificial neural network. Food Measure (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11694-024-02538-2

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11694-024-02538-2

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Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Milk adulteration

Catherine Tang Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Global milk consumption has steadily increased over the past few decades, reaching an estimated 908 billion liters in 2021. 1 Rich in protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals, milk is considered an “ideal food” for its abundant nutrients required by both children and adults. However, milk is also one of the primary victims of food adulteration, where the quality of food is degraded by either the substitution of low-quality materials or by the omission of valuable ingredients from essential foods. Adulteration can be deliberate to cut back on production costs, or accidental, arising from ignorance, negligence, and a lack of strong regulatory systems and policies. 2 In the American Public Health Association’s Public Health Papers and Reports , from the early 1870s to the early 1910s, the approach to milk adulteration evolved from reactionary to preventive. This evolution was influenced by the Bacteriological Revolution and early environmental sanitation movements, the professionalization of public health, the shifting of responsibilities from state to local governments, and the emergence of new public health actors.

The late nineteenth century saw a rising social consciousness among the middle and upper classes to improve the health and welfare of the poor, as well as an acknowledgment of the impact of the environment on people’s lives. In response to this sanitary revolution, the American Public Health Association (APHA) was formed in 1870. One important focus was food adulteration. After public apprehension crested, with an increasing belief that food adulteration was pervasive and dangerous to health, public health leaders, medical societies, and trade associations joined forces in 1870 to pass pure food and drug legislation. 3 It was during this time that Professor Albert R. Leeds from Hoboken, New Jersey, published “The Adulteration of Foods” in 1883, which highlighted how high rates of milk adulteration disproportionately affected children. Leeds suggested setting a uniform legal standard for “adulterated milk,” implementing stricter fines for violations of anti-adulteration laws, and bringing legal suits against transgressors. However, he also criticized the “crudeness and imperfections of many of the present methods” that tested for the nature and amount of adulteration. In response, he proposed appointing specialized analysts of “high professional attainments and undoubted honesty” 4 to carry out inspections, illustrating this period’s transition to a merit-based system for appointing public health officials. Leeds also emphasized the involvement of state boards of health, demonstrating the advocacy of the APHA for state agencies to assume the responsibility for public health enforcement. 5

As the nineteenth century advanced, the APHA’s focus on epidemiological disease expanded to include sanitary inspections, plumbing and drainage, food inspection, and offensive trade regulation. The rapid increase in urban populations also gave rise to political economists who emphasized that the health of the population played a major role in determining a country’s strength—an idea explored in “The Milk-Supply for Our Large Cities: The Extent of Adulteration and Its Consequences: Methods of Prevention” by Dr. J. Cheston Morris from Philadelphia in 1884. Morris highlighted “the importance of [the] milk supply from an economic and commercial point of view” and targeted the “thin, watery, ghostlike” swill milk that caused disproportionate rates of infant mortality from diarrheal diseases. His observations paralleled considerations from other public health entities during this period, which focused on the production of swill milk from poorly kept cows jammed together in filthy conditions. While Morris acknowledged the difficulties of enforcement, he also emphasized the local and state government’s duty to oversee continued milk inspection by vigilant sanitary officers. In addition, he proposed importing a new method of packaging from France where milk was stored in glass jars or bottles “free from contamination with foul air “ 6 — a nod to the miasmatic theory underlying the sanitary movement for much of the nineteenth century.

In the early twentieth century, public health innovation accelerated in tandem with discoveries of the Bacteriological Revolution. New germ theories coupled with urban development, technological transformations, and more responsive health departments boasting new fiscal authority 7 led to rapid public health developments. Milk adulteration was no exception. It was during this period of change that Dr. William H. Park from New York City published his “Report of Committee on Control of Milk Supplies in Large Cities” in 1905. Park’s recognition of the most serious contamination of milk being “contagious of scarlet fever, typhoid fever, diphtheria, [or] tuberculosis…[and] infection with the bacteria derived from diseased cattle” illustrates this period’s emphasis on finding the specific vector of disease as the preeminent public health response. His proposed methods and solutions, however, also balanced adherence to traditional environmental sanitation measures with the adoption of novel methods addressing specific bacteriological diseases. Park recognized the importance of inspecting all parts of the milk production and shipping process including sanitary conditions at the farm, during transportation, and at delivery stations; regulation of temperature; well-lit and ventilated stables; and hand-washing by milkers and delivery persons. At the same time, after acknowledging the difficulties of procuring funds to conduct routine inspections, he also suggested establishing a separate commission giving sanitary officers “laboratory room[s] for chemical and bacteriological tests” on milk samples and identifying new public health actors, such as physicians and private commissioners, who would work in conjunction with municipal health departments. 8

The reports by Leeds, Morris, and Park point to essential changes in methods employed by American public health authorities to address milk adulteration from 1873 to 1912. First, the Bacteriological Revolution sparked debates over whether public health measures should center around promoting environmental sanitation or targeting specific diseases. As seen through Morris’ and Park’s reports, increased attention was paid to whether or not milk contained germs for tuberculosis, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and more. Accordingly, methods of prevention adapted to keep pace with the rise of laboratory testing of milk samples and more nuanced understandings of chemical and biological processes. Diagnostic bacteriological laboratories yielding more accurate results became a staple part of health departments, and public health officials increasingly subscribed to the idea that “disease vectors must be confronted through research and testing rather than through the old preventative methods.” However, anti-contagionists’ continued advocacy for the efficacy of improved environmental conditions, such as ventilation and sanitation led to a compromise, wherein “environmental sanitation assumed a complementary role with bacteriology in the maintenance of a community’s health, but not the primary weapon in combating disease.” 9 In other words, while the old public health was more concerned with the environment, the new public health, rather than seeking to prevent all types of disease, increasingly focused on implementing new preventative measures for milk adulteration that concentrated on identifying and addressing specific germs found in milk samples.

The years between 1873 and 1912 also saw the professionalization and standardization of public health. By the early twentieth century, most health officers had received some sort of formal training, and public health evolved into a distinct medical specialty. Particularly after the creation of the APHA, public health increasingly became institutionalized in urban centers, with health departments playing a key role in educating the public on milk adulteration and eliminating the worst threats to community health. Milk distribution centers and visiting nurses became primary vectors in educating new mothers in infant care, thus cementing milk adulteration’s connection to child health—a trend that has endured to this day. Furthermore, the rise of public health professionals resulted in changes to how inspections were carried out to increase adherence to regulatory statutes. For instance, Park suggests that officials should conduct “far fewer inspections…at unexpected times [to] create a wholesome fear among the slack…if severe penalties are inflicted.” 10 This is an example of the transition from reactionary to preventive measures, as inspectors sought to deter transgressions rather than mobilizing only after they had already occurred.

This period also saw a shift of responsibility for enforcement from state to municipal health departments, as well as the introduction of new public health actors. By the late nineteenth century, state health departments were less involved in day-to-day health measures, while municipal governments accepted more administrative responsibilities. This change is seen most clearly through the substantial increase in municipal expenditures from 1900 to 1920, as well as several cities’ demands for less state interference in their affairs. Coupled with this transition, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also saw the involvement of new actors who can be roughly divided into two groups: professionals and quasi-professionals with technical or scientific skills, such as sanitarians, physicians, and engineers; and citizens with strong civic and aesthetic values. 11

Ultimately, 1873–1912 was ripe with changes regarding methods and solutions to prevent milk adulteration, whether they arose from novel bacteriological discoveries, the professionalization of public health, or the transfer of responsibility from state to municipal agencies. However, it is equally important to recognize enduring continuities, especially the overarching connection between food safety and the health of the nation. Although diagnostic testing technologies and legal frameworks addressing milk adulteration have advanced substantially, the underlying principle that prevention is the best medicine remains the same. Ultimately, to understand the future is to look to the past, and public health is no exception.

• “Per Capita Consumption of Milk, Excluding Butter.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Our World in Data. Last modified March 14, 2024. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-milk-consumption.
• Azad, Tanzina, and Shoeb Ahmed. “Common Milk Adulteration and Their Detection Techniques.” International Journal of Food Contamination 3, no. 1 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40550-016-0045-3.
• Duffy, John. The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health . Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990.
• Leeds, Albert R. “The Adulteration of Foods.” Public Health Papers and Reports 9 (November 1883): 166-70. Hathitrust. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc2.ark:/13960/t1fj53m4r&seq=5.
• Duffy, The Sanitarians .
• Morris, J. Cheston. “The Milk-Supply for Our Large Cities: The Extent of Adulteration and Its Consequences: Methods of Prevention.” Public Health Papers and Reports 10 (October 1884): 246-52. Hathitrust. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc2.ark:/13960/t9185z31n&seq=7.
• Melosi, Martin V. The Sanitary City: Environmental Services in Urban America from Colonial Times to the Present . Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008.
• Park, William H. “Report of Committee on Control of Milk Supplies in Large Cities.” Public Health Papers and Reports 30 (January 1905): 176-84. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hx3bz4&seq=7.
• Melosi, The Sanitary City .

CATHERINE GRACE TANG is a rising sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Health and Societies with a concentration in Health Policy & Law. Her research interests are in the history of public health policy, with a specific focus on responses to epidemiological diseases such as HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, and diarrheal diseases. 

Spring 2024

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Unraveling the drug crisis: providing timely data to break the cycle.

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The problem is that we're too late. Data were just released for 2021; it's 2024. It's as helpful to me today to combat drug overdose deaths to study the year 2021 as it is 1850. It's just a whole different ballgame out there.”

Lori Ann Post Demographer, epidemiologist, and IPR associate

Throughout its history, the U.S. has battled waves of widespread drug addiction. From painkiller addictions on Civil War battlefields to the 1980s era of crack cocaine, each crisis gives way to a new one.

Today, however, with new drugs constantly emerging, it's becoming harder to keep up with creating drug screenings and medicine to reverse overdoses. This lag leads to more overdose deaths, according to demographer, epidemiologist, and IPR associate Lori Ann Post.

Post emphasizes that we are not in a drug epidemic: We’re in a continuous, evolving drug crisis. Pandemics and epidemics have a clear beginning, middle, and end, she says, but the shape-shifting nature of the drug crisis leaves no end in sight.

The Ohio River Valley Corridor Regional Drug Data Research Center (ORVC-C) , led by Post, aims to keep history from repeating itself. The center aims to support prevention, harm reduction, treatment, public safety, and recovery services, and to create a drug data-sharing model for others. Currently, overdose death data lags two or three years behind.

“The problem is that we're too late. Data were just released for 2021; it's 2024,” Post said. “It's as helpful to me today to combat drug overdose deaths to study the year 2021 as it is 1850. It's just a whole different ballgame out there.”

“By the time we get the evidence we have, it's already too late and the problem has evolved, and it's a new variant of concern and has new treatment and needs,” she explained.

Approximately 107,622 drug overdose deaths were reported in 2021, up nearly 15% from 93,655 deaths in 2020. Over 75% of those deaths involved opioids. The COVID-19 pandemic is commonly blamed for the surge in overdose deaths, but Post said the rates were "skyrocketing" before the pandemic.

Since 1999, almost 645,000 people have died from overdoses involving opioids. This rise in opioid overdose deaths can be explained in waves, according to Post:

• The first wave started in the 1990s due to an increase in opioid prescriptions.
• The second wave began in 2010, marked by a sharp increase in overdose deaths involving heroin.
• The third wave began in 2013, with significant increases in overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids, particularly illicitly manufactured fentanyl.
• The fourth wave began around 2019 and is largely still driven by fentanyl with the addition of stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamines.

Post explains that the fourth wave is further evolving into drug cocktails that are adulterated with animal tranquilizers . This wave is more dangerous than its predecessors, as these drug combinations are more lethal and reversal agents are limited to fentanyl overdoses.

The ORVC-C launched in October with $3.55 million in funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance. It operates in the Ohio River Valley Corridor, encompassing Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. These regions bear a lopsided burden of escalating rates of drug overdoses, individuals with substance use disorder, and drug/narcotic violations, Post says.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance has doubled the funding to create a second regional center extending the initial center to New England, New York, and New Jersey.

Within the center, Post established a Central Data Repository (CDR) and a Dissemination and Engagement Center (DEC). The CDR collects, analyzes, and shares comprehensive drug-related data from existing information collected by local, state, and national agencies. This covers labor, crime, public health indicators, and demographic data. The DEC fosters partnerships and produces educational materials to address needs as they arise.

Post says that the center processes data to provide actionable insights for policymakers, public health practitioners, law enforcement, and other stakeholders, while also ensuring accessibility for fellow researchers.

Streamlining the data collection process reduces administrative burdens. It also allows researchers to delve directly into addressing critical issues without unnecessary hurdles.

“The more people doing research on it, the better we're going to do,” she said. “The timelier the data is, the more relevant it is to solving drug use and preventing drug overdose deaths. That’s the whole point.”

Lori Ann Post is the Buehler Professor for Aging, director of the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics, and an IPR associate.

Photo credit: iStock

Published: May 10, 2024.

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