Mycotoxins in dairy products

Certain fungi produce chemical substances that cause toxic symptoms when food containing them is ingested by man or animals. These compounds are referred to as mycotoxins. Mycotoxins may contaminate dairy products by moulds growing on them, or by the carry-over of mycotoxins occurring in animal feedstuffs ingested by dairy cattle. An example of the first mentioned category is sterigmatocystin, a carcinogenic mycotoxin sometimes occurring on hard cheese. An example of the second category is aflatoxin M₁, a compound strongly suspected to be carcinogenic, which often occurs in milk. Due to the fact that processing of milk does not decrease the aflatoxin M₁ content, aflatoxin M₁ occurs in various dairy products. Sensitive methods of analysis for the determination of mycotoxins in dairy products have been developed in the last 10 years, most of them are based on TLC- or HPLC-separation procedures, followed by fluorimetric measurement.The most fundamental way to tackle the problem of mycotoxin contamination of dairy products is to prevent fungal growth on the dairy products or, in the case of carry-over of mycotoxins, in the crop before, during and after harvest. If measures to prevent fungal growth and mycotoxins production are not taken or fail, one can sometimes resort to physical or chemical methods to eliminate mycotoxins.