Fruit and vegetable intake plays a key role in pesticide exposure of Latvian citizens

Diet is one of the sources of pesticide exposure. To assess the role of intake of fruit and vegetables on pesticide exposure in Latvia, in 2020, 402 urine samples from children and their parents were gathered and analyzed in association with 24 h food diaries prior to urine sample collection. A suspect screening approach with full-scan High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry was used to detect pesticide mixtures in the samples. Fieldwork was done in two seasons (winter/early spring of 2020 and summer of 2020) to evaluate the impact of agricultural activities. Chlorpropham was the most frequently detected pesticide in children’s urine samples (children, who live less than 250m from agricultural lands – in winter – 38.0%, n=19, in summer – 46.0%, n=23 vs. children, who live more than 500m from the fields – in winter, 37.3%, n=19, in summer – 41.2%, n=21). No statistically significant differences were observed between the groups, indicating that diet impacts pesticide exposure. Additional results show that the proportion of pyrimethanil (detected/not detected) is statistically significantly different among children reporting eating apples (26.8/73.2%) 24h prior to urine sample collection compared to not eating apples (11.1%/88.9%), X2 (1) = 5.50, p=0.019, Cramer`s V = 0.2. In adult urine samples the differences of acetamiprid (detected/not detected) were statistically significant between those having apples (50.0%/50.0%) and not (23.4%/76.6%), X2 (1) = 12.5, p<0.001, Cramer`s V=0.264. Being systemic substances, both pesticides can penetrate the apple skin further into pulp and its removal might not be effective. Therefore the use of self-grown or biological produce consumption should be encouraged to lessen the exposure to pesticides.