The excreation via the urine is fast and half of the acrylamide is cleared from the body in a few hours. The toxicological effects of acrylamide are well known. It causes DNA damage and at high doses neurological and reproductive effects have been observed.
Once in your body, acrylamide enters your body fluids. Acrylamide and its breakdown products leave your body mostly through urine; small amounts may leave through feces, exhaled air, and breast milk.
Drinking more water, a lot more water for some of us, will probably be the most important thing you can do to get rid of Acrylamide. However, make sure you are drinking pure water; otherwise you may inadvertently increase your exposure. Taking herbs to improve kidney and liver detoxification may be helpful.
How can acrylamide affect my health? The main targets of acrylamide toxicity are the nervous system and reproductive system. Nervous system effects such as muscle weakness, numbness in hands and feet, sweating, unsteadiness, and clumsiness were reported in some acrylamide workers.
Use the lowest oven temperature possible for the food. Baking foods to a golden yellow, or lighter colour, and at lower oven temperatures will reduce acrylamide levels. When cooking foods such as toast and toasted sandwiches do not over-toast or burn.
Acrylamide has been shown to cause cancer in animals exposed to very high doses, and although there is no consistent epidemiological evidence on the effect of acrylamide from food consumption on cancer in humans, both the U.S. National Toxicology Program and the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health ...
The formation of acrylamide in both banana varieties was enhanced with an increase in both reducing sugars (glucose and fructose). This research demonstrated that the formation of acrylamide was strongly dependent on the concentration of, both glucose and fructose.
Another study also indicated the neurotoxic effects of acrylamide by inducing oxidative stress and apoptotic and inflammatory responses in the microglia in mice.
The major food sources of acrylamide are French fries and potato chips; crackers, bread, and cookies; breakfast cereals; canned black olives; prune juice; and coffee. Acrylamide levels in food vary widely depending on the manufacturer, the cooking time, and the method and temperature of the cooking process (5, 6).
The link between acrylamide in food and cancer is not clear. The only studies to show a clear link between acrylamide and cancer are animal studies. These involved very high levels of the chemical. Studies that followed people over time did not find a link between eating foods with acrylamide and cancer.
Tests with antioxidants
Even rosemary in small quantities – in one per cent of the dough – was enough to reduce the acrylamide content significantly. Flavonoids are another type of antioxidant found, among other things, in vegetables, chocolate and tea.
Acrylamide is found mainly in foods made from plants, such as potato products, grain products, or coffee. Acrylamide does not form, or forms at lower levels, in dairy, meat, and fish products. Generally, acrylamide is more likely to accumulate when cooking is done for longer periods or at higher temperatures.
Two-thirds of the absorbed dose is excreted with a half-life of a few hours. However, protein-bound acrylamide or acrylamide metabolites in the blood, and possibly in the central nervous system, have a half-life of about 10 days.
Breakfast cereals – cornflakes and all-bran flakes are the worst offenders, while porridge oats contain no acrylamide at all. Biscuits and crackers – if baking at home, follow recipes that cook at a relatively low temperature. Also make the finished product as light in colour as possible (without it being raw!).
For acrylamide, the safe harbor level is the same as the so-called no significant risk level (NSRL): 0.2 micrograms per day. An eight-ounce cup of Starbucks runs about 9 parts per billion acrylamide, which translates to about 2 micrograms, or ten times the NSRL.
The EU has created a much stricter benchmark for safe levels of acrylamide in food (at least related to the growth of tumors) at 0.17 µg/day per kilogram of body weight. Doing the math, a person weighing 154 lbs (70 kg) could safely consume 26 µg of acrylamide each day.
Air fryers themselves aren't a cause of cancer, but air frying does produce certain compounds such as acrylamide, which is considered a "probable" carcinogen.
Here, chronic acrylamide intoxication produces selective peripheral and central nerve fiber degeneration. Degeneration first occurs in the extremities of long and large nerve fibers which later undergo a progressive, seriate proximal axonal degeneration known as dying-back.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration monitors acrylamide levels in certain foods, and amounts in peanuts and peanut products are low or undetectable. If present, acrylamide naturally forms when peanuts are roasted; it is not added to peanut butter by manufacturers.
High levels of acrylamide were found in these food items: up to 327 µg/kg for sweet potato baked at 190 °C for 14 min, and 99 µg/kg for carrot baked at 190 °C for 13 min.
The contents of acrylamide in breads ranged from below the limit of quantification to 695 μg kg−1 and the mean acrylamide content was 225 μg kg−1. The highest mean level of acrylamide was detected in whole wheat bread.
High acrylamide exposure was associated with a linearly increased risk of endometrial cancer, particularly in never-smokers. A statistically significant association was found between dietary acrylamide exposure and ovarian cancer (especially in non-smokers).
As mentioned, when starchy, carbohydrate-based foods such as potatoes, wheat, rice and other grains are heated above 120 °C (by frying, baking, roasting or toasting, for example), the naturally occurring amino acid asparagine reacts with sugars to form acrylamide.