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Article: Dietary nitrate: where is the risk?(Correspondence)
- Article from:
- Environmental Health Perspectives
- Article date:
- August 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Links between nitrate and health risk have been studied for > 50 years, resulting in a large body of research. As two book-length reviews of the issue (Addiscott 2005; L'hirondel and L'hirondel 2001) tried to show, none of the health claims against dietary nitrate have been substantiated.
If there was not already an established maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 10 ppm for nitrate in drinking water in the United States [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 1991; World Health Organization (WHO) 1958], it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to justify one based on the extensive evidence gathered to date.
The conclusion of Ward et al. ...