How Safe is Food Containing Titanium Oxide?

We need more Information to Establish Safety Profile for Titanium Oxide

Titanium Oxide is being increasingly used in food processing industry, but its safety profile is not fully proven yet. Just because we still do not have enough evidence to show that it may be harmful is not a reason to be complacent about it. With industrial and commercial interests often predominating the deliberations over safety profile of food products, it is important to raise awareness.

Anatase: A Mineral Form of Titanium Oxide

Many of us have already been using it, perhaps without knowing what it is. Like all food additives, often consumers know little about such additives or their potential adverse effects, including the possibility of their carcinogenic potential.

What has Titanium Oxide to do with Food?

Titanium dioxide, also commonly referred to as Titanium Oxide is being increasingly used in the food processing industry as a whitening agent. It is used in skimmed milk as well as several other edible products. As its use rises many observers and scientists are also expressing concerns about its safety profile.

Before we can be sure about the safety profile of Titanium Oxide, we need to ask whether we are fully aware of all the affects of Titanium dioxide on the body, including those that they may be seen over a period of decades, as happens in the case of carcinogenic substances that promote cancer.

Natural vs. Artificial Agents

The difference between natural and artificial is that while the natural products are time tested by virtue of having been existence since centuries, the man made artificial products are still to be tested in a similar way. Those substances which are outright poisonous or highly toxic are not a problem, because the problems arising from them are immediately observed on the basis of which their use can be avoided or restricted. The real problem is in case of those substances that affect the mutation of genes of the cells, because they do produce any immediate effect. This is what happens in the case of cancers.

How do Carcinogenic Substances Affect Us?

Carcinogenic substances do not cause cancer in a few days or weeks. They have some impact on the body cells, usually involving the mutation of genes, that interferes with the control over self multiplication, but the effects are not immediately visible. Actually the development of most cancers is a result of many steps of defects, which together suddenly start manifesting in the form of cancer. The process of carcinogenesis or cancer development may take many years, even many decades. Because of this, it is very difficult to certify as to whether any substance is safe or not.

Those substances that lead to cancer in the experimental setting are likely to have the carcinogenic effect in real life, but their effect in real world may actually take several decades to decipher and understand and even then, it may not always be possible to ensure as to what is the real cause of cancer.

How safe is use of Titanium Oxide?

In case of Titanium dioxide, there are several factors that call for caution in its use in food. First, it has been shown to have carcinogenic properties – it causes lung cancer in rats exposed to high concentrations, thereby implying a danger for workers in occupations that are prone to titanium di oxide inhalation, such as paint workers. For this very reason it has been classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as an IARC Group 2B carcinogen meaning that it could be possibly carcinogen to humans. 

Now if it could be carcinogenic, its effects on people consuming it will depend on the total amount they consume, their own vulnerability to cancer and the time for which they consume it. The effects of this substance will hence differ from person to person, and will be seen only after a long period. Remember, not every person who smokes develops lung cancer, and most who develop also do so only after a long period of excessive use.

As thing stand today, the use of Titanium dioxide in edible material is on the rise, and will rise further unless we are cautious enough to ensure that we do not put the life of a common consumer under danger, just because we do not yet have a proof that it is carcinogenic. It would be far more preferable to first indulge in sufficient experimental and real life testing and observations for changes that can result from the use of Titanium dioxide, and give it a safety certificate only when we are really sure about it.