SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

As we are about to see coffee is by far not the worst aflotoxin offender in the human diet. Still, that does not mean that the coffee related exposure to this form of mold that can befall all sorts of grains, nuts and seeds is harmless. You will probably remember that I casually touched on the possibility of being exposed to aflotoxins and more importantly ochratoxins as a result of the consumption of mold-infected coffee in previous coffee articles . When the issue of the « coffee ➲ aflotoxin / ochratoxin exposure ➲ serious health » triage resurfaced in a brief facebook conversation, recently, I realized that I was not 100% sure if these mycotoxins that are produced by Aspergillus flavus , Aspergillus ochraceus, Aspergillus niger , and Aspergillus carbonarius do or don't pose a serious health risk. Well, you know how much I hate unanswered questions, so I kept digging until I'd found what I consider to be a half-way satisfying answer to this life-or-death question...

Coffee and green coffee bean extracts are by no means the only way by which you are exposed to mycotoxins. Corn, for example, is likewise a favorite for the toxic mold. The same goes for almost all other grains. Common routes of exposure are, amongst others cereals, bread s, wines, and even mils and meats (of swine ad turkey, not chicken; Duarte. 2010) 36%, 32%, 10%, and 16% these are the SuppVersity Figures of the week and the percentages of green coffee bean supplements (remember the chlorogenic acid news in Thursday's installment of the Science Round-Up ) that were contaminated with Ochratoxin A, ochratoxin B, fumonisin B1 and mycophenolic acid , respectively. "Mycotoxins occurred in the following concentration ranges: ochratoxin A: 2.7–136.9 µg/kg, ochratoxin B: 3.5–20.2 µg/kg, fumonisin B1: 110.0–415.0 µg/kg, mycophenolic acid: 43.1–395.0 µg/kg." (Vaclavi. 2013) These poisonous substances are produced by fungi that form during (inproper) storage and are sus...