2006 Volume 23 Pages 128-133
A kind of edible sea brown algae, Hijikia fusiforme, contains high amount of inorganic arsenic. British Food Standard Agency (FSA) advised people not to eat a type of seaweed called Hijiki, on July 2004, because of the high levels of arsenic that it contains. In this study, we examined the removal of arsenic compounds by soaking procedure with water, and the excretion of arsenic contained in H. fusiforme was investigated in mice. The arsenic compounds were determined by hydride generation-atomic absorption spectrometry (HG-AAS), and the speciation analysis of arsenic was used by high performance liquid chromatograph coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (HPLC/ICP-MS). It was made clear that the 28.2~58.8% of the total arsenic in alga were removed with water, 49.3~60.5% of arsenic eluted by heated cooking procedure, thus 88.7~91.5% of total arsenic is removable with cooking process. Hijiki was given to the mice, dimethylarsinic acid (DMAA) was mainly metabolized in urine. It became clear that soak with water and heated cooking procedure are effective in removal of arsenic from edible brown algae.
