# Nanoparticles as a younger member of the trace element species family — a food perspective

## TL;DR

The paper discusses how nanoparticles in food, like dissolved trace elements, need special analysis to understand their effects on human health.

## Contribution

The paper introduces the importance of analyzing nanoparticles in food matrices and gastrointestinal systems alongside classical speciation methods.

## Key findings

- Nanoparticles in food can originate from natural or industrial sources and may change in the gastrointestinal tract.
- Combining classical and nanoparticle speciation techniques is essential for accurate characterization.
- Biogenic nanoparticle formation and behavior in food matrices are key areas of current research.

## Abstract

Speciation analysis plays a key role in understanding the biological activity and toxicity of an element. So far, classical speciation analysis focused only on the dissolved fraction of an elemental species, whereas nanoparticle forms of analytes are being widely found in consumer and industrial products. A significant contributor to human exposure to nanoparticles is through food into which nanoparticles can be incorporated from endogenous sources or they may be formed naturally in the living organisms. Nanoparticles often undergo changes in the food matrices and upon consumption, in the gastrointestinal tract, which present a significant challenge to their characterisation. Therefore, a combination of both classical and nanoparticle speciation analytical techniques is needed for the characterisation of both dissolved and particulate forms of the chemical species. This article presents and discusses the current trends in analysis of nanoparticle behaviour in the gastrointestinal tract and formation and characterisation of biogenic nanoparticles.