An investigation was undertaken with the aim of verifying whether it is useful for the purpose of speciation studies to combine high performance liquid chromatography and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, applying the HPLC/ICP-MS coupled technique to the speciation of minor and trace elements which are of clinical and nutritional interest in human milk. In particular, this method is meant to be used to detect the chemical forms under which some elements of primary importance such as Al, Ba, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cs, Cu, Fe, Li, Mg, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Sr, T1, V and Zn are present in human milk. Results show that experimental conditions must be carefully optimized to guarantee reliability of data. Moreover, the data collected made it possible to more credibly assess the distributions to be expected for some elements in human milk and can contribute in clarifying some problems as regards their metabolic fate.

Ochratoxin A (OA) is a mycotoxin detected in a variety of food and feeds mostly from countries with temperate or continental climate, because the fungi that produce it, mainly Aspergillus ochraceus, Penicillium verrucosum, and Penicillium viridicatum, can grow under a great variety of climate conditions. The aim of this article was, firstly, to confirm the occurrence of OA in human milk in Italy. Then, a preliminary calculation of OA intake via human milk was made, from ingested food. For this investigation, food and milk samples were collected, continuously for a week, from 4 lactating mothers. The obtained results revealed a significant exposure of sucklings and mothers to OA levels higher than the tolerable daily intake as estimated from animal models. On the basis of these data, a major effort in planning surveillance and research programs to control OA contamination in food, feed, and biological fluids should be pursued.