Meat, fish 'suck' chemicals: how harmful?

In addition to residual clenbuterol in cattle meat, analytical results in a laboratory showed that in fish, shrimp have fluoroquinolone from 0-5ppb (parts per billion), chloramphenicol from 0-1ppb; in animal feed with albutamol from 0.5-11ppm (parts per million).

Dr. Dao Thi Yen Phi, Ho Chi Minh City Medical Training and Retraining Center, said:

Dr. Dao Thi Yen Phi (Photo: TTO)

- Fluoroquinolone and chloramphenicol are two highly toxic antibiotics, only used with certain doses are strictly regulated and are all antibiotics limited to use for children because of the impact on the growth process. Fluoroquinolone if prolonged use of high doses will affect bone cartilage and the baby's growth process slows, dwarfing. The frightening effect of chloramphenicol is medullary failure.

For example, 5ppb fluoroquinolone residue - equivalent to 5 micrograms / kg of meat, if a person eats an average of 150-200 grams / day, the amount of fluoroquinolone is about 2 micrograms / day. This amount will not cause toxicity immediately, but if accumulated long term or overeating will be harmful.

With chloramphenicol content in shrimp 0.1ppb, if we eat 100-150gam shrimp, 0.1mcg chloramphenicol / day, in normal people this is not a potentially toxic dose because the liver will release toxic substances out. But if the human body is available with liver, kidney disease or available myelosuppression, bone cartilage growth disorder, then the toxicity of these two drugs is unforeseen.

In addition, the widespread use of pets for antibiotics in the human drug list is likely to lead to bacterial resistance. This will affect the ability to treat infectious diseases in the community.

For consumers, it is only recommended to eat a variety of foods (many different foods at the same meal) to avoid the risk of concentrating on one type of food with too high residual medicine.Eat just enough according to the National Institute of Nutrition recommended: every day only 200 grams of protein-rich foods (including meat, fish, shrimp, crab .).

* Previously in raising some people using dexamethasone to gain weight, how are clenbuterol used on humans?

- Dexamethasone belongs to anti-inflammatory group, very fast weight gain on all living organisms because of salt retention, water retention, impact on the metabolism of sugar and fat, causing fat accumulation (increase the process) fat accumulation.

This drug has many dangerous side effects such as cushing syndrome (adrenal hyperstimulation syndrome, fat-like symptoms in the shoulders and face, beard, hirsutism, secondary amenorrhea .), osteoporosis, diabetes, skin pigmentation disorders, impaired immune system activity - increases the risk of infection .

Clenbuterol is banned because it increases fat metabolism, the cell wall (wall) structure is usually fat, so it will damage normal cells. After a period of use can cause cardiac arrhythmias, myocardial cell damage, muscle tremors, hypertension, dizziness, and more dangerously possible mutation of cells and premise for cancer develope.

* The content of salbutamol in animal feed containing samples up to 11ppm is quite high. How harmful is this?

- Salbutamol is a sympathetic beta-2 drug, often used to treat asthma, threatened miscarriage, premature birth and side effects of increasing heart rate. How much harm is used to make weight-gain substances, it is unknown.

* For banned substances, the regulatory authority only qualifies whether or not it is present. So how much existence, how harm do you know?

- The above substances affect the health depending on many factors: depending on the local people waste more or less, depending on the amount of food intake every day . With a professional perspective, this concentration is not toxic to the body (The body will metabolize and eliminate itself) if the amount of food eaten daily does not exceed the recommended demand and the time of continuous use does not last long.

But it should be noted that the test content from a testing facility mentioned above is very limited data with the majority of good samples. But meat sold outside for consumers is not tested for these substances, and the content of the risk-to-health drugs that remain in food is unknown. Often cooked may not affect the survival of the drug in food, but for consumers who have a habit of re-cooking or eating raw, the risk is more serious.

In the chain from the time of raising to slaughtering, processing and using food, there are now too many gaps so that the risks of human health damage can occur that we have not yet fully controlled. There should soon be a law that clearly regulates the amount of drugs used in animal food if necessary and the safe use time for discharging drugs before finishing. Strictly handle cases of business and use of illicit weight gain drugs and banned drugs.

KIM SON performed