The scale of the contamination problem is staggering. The Food and Agriculture Organization has long estimated that about 25 percent of food crops are tainted with mycotoxins, but more recent analyses suggest the true figure may be as high as 60 to 80 percent, a revision driven largely by improvements in analytical sensitivity. On the pesticide front, roughly 3.73 million tonnes of agricultural chemicals were applied globally in 2023, yet only an estimated 0.1 percent of pesticides actually reach their intended targets. The rest disperses into air, water, and soil, eventually threading its way back into the food chain and onto our plates.

The health stakes are far from theoretical. Organophosphate pesticides such as chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and malathion can inflict long-term neurological and psychiatric damage by inhibiting the acetylcholinesterase enzyme. Paraquat exposure is linked to severe skin burns, pulmonary fibrosis, and respiratory failure, while carbamates like carbofuran have been associated with endocrine disruption, reproductive harm, and elevated risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Mycotoxins, including aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, deoxynivalenol, and zearalenone, cause both acute and chronic toxicity and have been detected at alarming rates in staple grains worldwide.

The evidence from market surveys is sobering. In Turkish cereal products, aflatoxin B1 concentrations exceeded regulatory limits in more than a quarter of tested samples. In Pakistan, a study of 229 retail cereal products found that 130 were contaminated with zearalenone, 121 with aflatoxin B1, and 115 with ochratoxin A, with many samples breaching maximum permissible levels. In India, 70 of 117 cereal samples tested positive for zearalenone, and one-third of those exceeded European Union limits. Meanwhile, European Rapid Alert System data show that fruits and vegetables accounted for 67.1 percent of all pesticide residue notifications between 1999 and 2022, with okra, chili peppers, beans, and aubergines showing the highest contamination rates.

Against this backdrop, conventional analytical techniques such as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry remain the gold standard for accuracy and sensitivity. But they come with serious drawbacks: they are time-consuming, demand toxic organic solvents, require expensive equipment and trained personnel, and are poorly suited to on-site or high-throughput screening. This is precisely the gap that antibody-based sensing platforms are engineered to fill, leveraging the exquisite molecular specificity of antigen-antibody interactions to deliver rapid results with minimal infrastructure.

ELISA, or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, has emerged as one of the most versatile of these platforms. Competitive ELISA formats dominate for small-molecule contaminants such as pesticides and mycotoxins, which lack the multiple epitopes needed for sandwich-style detection. Recent innovations are striking. An indirect competitive ELISA developed for the neonicotinoid pymetrozine achieved detection limits between 1.62 and 1.66 micrograms per kilogram in wheat, maize, and rice, matching the sensitivity of liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry at a fraction of the cost and time. Similarly, a direct competitive ELISA for the herbicide metsulfuron-methyl reached an IC50 of 37.03 micrograms per liter with recovery rates between 81 and 102 percent in spiked cereal samples.

Lateral-flow immunoassays, the same technology behind at-home pregnancy tests, push accessibility even further. These paper-based strips deliver visual results in minutes without instrumentation, making them ideal for farm, warehouse, or border-inspection settings. The review highlights how nanomaterial labels, particularly gold nanoparticles, have transformed LFIA performance. A gold nanoflower-based LFIA for the herbicide acifluorfen achieved a detection limit of 7.79 nanograms per milliliter, 9.6 times lower than a conventional gold nanoparticle version. Time-resolved fluorescent microsphere-based LFIAs have pushed limits even lower, detecting the fungicide paclobutrazol at 1.72 nanograms per milliliter and providing results within 18 minutes for triadimefon residues in oranges, tomatoes, and cucumbers.

Immunosensors represent the most technologically sophisticated end of the antibody-sensing spectrum, coupling immunochemical recognition to electrochemical, optical, or microgravimetric transducers. Electrochemical formats dominate because they offer high sensitivity, portability, and low cost. A graphene oxide-decorated screen-printed electrode immunosensor detected aflatoxin B1 in wheat flour at an astonishing 1.26 femtograms per microliter. A smartphone-based magneto-immunosensor for the same toxin in corn extract achieved a detection limit of 24 picograms per milliliter, displaying results in a simple traffic-light format through a companion Android app. Nanobody-mediated FRET immunosensors have detected ochratoxin A in rice, barley, wheat, and oats within five minutes at sub-microgram-per-kilogram limits.

Despite these advances, significant hurdles remain. Matrix effects, in which naturally occurring compounds in fruits, vegetables, and cereals such as enzymes, lipids, pigments, and sugars interfere with the analytical signal, continue to plague antibody-based methods, causing signal suppression or enhancement that undermines accuracy. Researchers are countering this through optimized extraction protocols, including QuEChERS pretreatment, hexane cleanup, and careful buffer selection. Antibody stability during storage and repeated freeze-thaw cycles poses another challenge, with aggregation and denaturation eroding performance over time. Camelid-derived nanobodies offer a promising solution, retaining functionality at temperatures as high as 40 degrees Celsius where conventional antibodies would fail, making them especially valuable for on-site applications in resource-limited settings.

Looking ahead, the review points toward a hybrid future in which artificial intelligence amplifies the reach of antibody-based sensing. Connectionist machine learning models excel at extracting subtle patterns from raw sensor data, while symbolic AI frameworks provide the transparent, rule-based reasoning needed for regulatory compliance and traceability across food supply chains. Integrating smartphone readers, cloud connectivity, and AI-driven interpretation with LFIA and immunosensor platforms could automate result analysis, minimize human error, and enable real-time remote monitoring. As contamination pressures mount under climate change and intensifying agriculture, these antibody-powered technologies are poised to become an indispensable frontline defense in keeping the global food supply safe.

Subject of Research: Antibody-based biosensing technologies for detecting pesticide residues and mycotoxins in plant-derived foods

Article Title: Antibody-based sensing of pesticide residues and mycotoxins in plant-derived foods: A narrative review of ELISA, lateral-flow immunoassays and immunosensors

Article References: Kumar, H., Guleria, S., Peter, L., Akhtar, N., Asghar, R., Harun, H. B. C., Kumar, D., Kuča, K., Shaikh, A. M., Harsányi, E., & Kovács, B. (2026). Antibody-based sensing of pesticide residues and mycotoxins in plant-derived foods: A narrative review of ELISA, lateral-flow immunoassays and immunosensors. Food Chemistry: X, Article 104530. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fochx.2026.104530

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1016/j.fochx.2026.104530

Keywords: ELISA, lateral-flow immunoassay, immunosensors, pesticide residues, mycotoxins, food safety, biosensors, nanoparticles, cereals, fruits and vegetables, nanobodies, food contamination

The central premise of RWD is elegantly simple. A thin layer of food puree or slices is spread on a transparent plastic film that floats on the surface of circulating hot water, typically at temperatures near the boiling point. Heat conducts through the film into the wet product, but here the physics takes an unusual turn. Because the food layer is moist and the film is transparent, most of the incoming energy is transmitted directly into the water inside the food, driving rapid evaporation from the exposed surface. As the product dries and its water content falls, its ability to transmit infrared radiation collapses. The plastic film then acts as a barrier, reflecting radiant heat back into the water bath and effectively switching off further heating. The result is a self-regulating system in which the product never lingers at high temperatures once most of the moisture is gone.

This built-in safety valve is what makes RWD so attractive for heat-sensitive nutrients. Ascorbic acid degrades through both thermal pathways and oxidative reactions, and its loss accelerates sharply at elevated temperatures and prolonged drying times. Conventional hot-air drying, the workhorse of the food industry, exposes material to heated air for hours, giving oxygen and heat ample opportunity to dismantle the vitamin. Freeze-drying avoids heat but is expensive and energy-hungry. RWD sits in a sweet spot: drying times are far shorter than hot-air methods, product temperatures remain moderate for most of the cycle, and the thin product layer limits oxygen diffusion deep into the matrix. The Indian review synthesises evidence across fruits, vegetables and herbal products and concludes that RWD and its hybrid variants generally achieve superior ascorbic acid retention compared with conventional techniques.

The evidence base is broad. Early landmark work on strawberry and carrot purees dried with the original Refractance Window system showed quality retention approaching that of freeze-drying at a fraction of the cost. Subsequent studies on acerola pulp, one of nature’s richest vitamin C sources, found that RWD preserved a striking share of the ascorbic acid that hot-air drying destroyed. Guava, pineapple, passion fruit, aonla, orange and peach products have all been dried successfully with the technique, with researchers consistently reporting better colour, flavour and nutrient profiles alongside competitive drying kinetics. Leafy greens and herbs such as asparagus, Malabar spinach, broccoli, kale and spinach have also benefited, and even probiotic bacteria like Lactobacillus plantarum have survived conductive hydro-drying through the refractance window, a testament to how gentle the process can be.

Underlying these outcomes are well-characterised heat and mass transfer phenomena. During the constant-rate period, evaporation from the free surface keeps the product near its wet-bulb temperature, which is low even when the water bath beneath is hot. Moisture migrates from the interior to the surface by diffusion and capillary flow, and the thin spreading of the material ensures that this pathway stays short. Quantitative modelling work has confirmed that the fraction of energy transferred by conduction through the film is modest compared with the radiant and evaporative fluxes, and that the dramatic drop in infrared transmittance of the drying film is the key to the falling-rate behaviour. In practical terms, the product spends its final minutes of drying in an increasingly protected microclimate rather than in a blast of hot air.

The review also examines hybrid RWD systems, which are where much of the current excitement lies. Far-infrared-assisted RWD adds radiant energy that penetrates the product and speeds internal heating, cutting drying times for apple slices and banana leather while preserving nutrients and aroma compounds better than hot-air drying. Microwave-assisted RWD, demonstrated recently for fruit dehydration, combines volumetric microwave heating with the gentle conductive base, reducing processing time further and improving bioactive compound retention. Ultrasound-assisted conductive hydro-drying uses acoustic cavitation to disrupt boundary layers and enhance moisture removal from apple slices and okra, and vacuum-coupled RWD lowers the boiling point of water to dry apple pomace powder at even gentler temperatures. Researchers have even built IoT-enabled, infrared-assisted RWD dryers with real-time monitoring, and solar photovoltaic-thermal versions that cut energy costs and emissions compared with conventional dryers.

Pre-treatments add another layer of control. Cold plasma treatment of apple slices before RWD has been shown to modify drying kinetics and quality attributes, while microwave pre-treatment of orange pestil, the traditional fruit leather, improves subsequent RWD performance. Optimisation studies using response surface methodology have mapped the interplay of water bath temperature, product loading thickness and drying time for tomato slices, jackfruit pulp, papaya, sapota bars and Tarhana dough, some of the latter even dried under vacuum to explore texture and quality trade-offs. Across these studies, the recurring theme is that RWD tolerates a wide processing window without catastrophic nutrient loss, giving food engineers genuine flexibility in tailoring products.

Why does ascorbic acid fare so well under RWD? The review points to the convergence of several protective factors: short exposure times, moderate product temperatures, limited oxygen contact in the wet product layer, and the rapid self-limiting temperature drop once drying progresses. Ascorbic acid is water-soluble and highly reactive, degrading to dehydroascorbic acid and then to irreversible breakdown products when conditions are harsh. By minimising the time-temperature integral, RWD preserves not only the vitamin itself but also the broader antioxidant capacity of the food, including phenolic compounds and carotenoids that often degrade in parallel. For consumers, that means dried fruit powders, leathers and snack products that deliver more of the nutritional promise of the fresh ingredient.

Challenges remain before RWD can displace conventional drying at scale. The technology requires thin, evenly spread product layers, which favours purees and slices but complicates handling of whole or particulate foods. Capital costs exceed those of simple hot-air dryers, and continuous industrial lines demand careful control of water bath temperature, film integrity and residence time. The review notes that standardised comparisons across studies are hampered by differences in product preparation, initial solids content and analytical methods for measuring vitamin retention, making it difficult to draw universal quantitative conclusions. Energy efficiency, while generally favourable, still depends on system design, and hybrid configurations add complexity that must be justified by measurable quality gains.

Nevertheless, the trajectory is clear. As demand surges for nutrient-dense dried fruits, vegetable powders, herbal products and functional food ingredients, drying technologies that respect molecular fragility are moving from laboratory curiosity to commercial reality. Refractance window drying, especially when paired with infrared, microwave, ultrasound or vacuum assistance and smart digital control, offers a rare combination of speed, gentleness and self-regulation. The Indian team’s critical appraisal suggests that for preserving ascorbic acid across diverse food matrices, the refractance window is less a niche trick than a genuinely transformative platform, one that could reshape how the food industry thinks about the humble act of removing water.

Subject of Research: Refractance window drying for preserving ascorbic acid in food matrices

Article Title: A critical appraisal of refractance window drying (RWD) for preserving ascorbic acid in diverse food matrices

Article References: Nayanthara, B., Nema, P. K., Gakhar, V., & Malakar, S. (2026). A critical appraisal of refractance window drying (RWD) for preserving ascorbic acid in diverse food matrices. Food Science and Biotechnology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10068-026-02320-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s10068-026-02320-8

Keywords: refractance window drying, ascorbic acid, vitamin C retention, food drying, hybrid drying, heat and mass transfer, bioactive compounds, food processing, fruits and vegetables, infrared drying, microwave drying, food engineering

Premature coronary artery disease, often abbreviated PCAD, refers to significant narrowing of the coronary arteries occurring before age 60 in men and before age 70 in women. It is a growing public health concern because it robs people of decades of productive life and imposes heavy costs on health systems. More than 80 percent of people with PCAD have at least one modifiable risk factor, such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, dyslipidemia, smoking, psychosocial stress, physical inactivity, or an unhealthy diet. Ischemic heart disease remains a leading cause of death and disability-adjusted life years both in Iran and globally, and its prevalence among younger adults is climbing, making the search for modifiable protective factors increasingly urgent.

The study was conducted within the framework of the IPAD project, which began in 2018 and recruited participants from cardiac catheterization and angiography units in roughly 14 cities across Iran. Uniquely, the study captured remarkable ethnic diversity, enrolling participants from Fars, Azari/Turk, Kurd, Arab, Lor, Gilak, Qashqai, and Bakhtiari backgrounds, with ethnicity determined by the birthplace of individuals and their parents. Cases were defined as adults with at least 75 percent stenosis in one coronary artery or at least 50 percent stenosis in the left main coronary artery, while controls had angiographically normal coronary arteries. Participants with prior confirmed coronary disease, prior interventions such as bypass surgery or angioplasty, implausible energy intakes below 800 or above 4,200 kilocalories per day, or recent herbal supplement use were excluded to improve data quality.

Dietary intake was assessed using a validated semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire administered by trained interviewers, with participants reporting how often they consumed each of a long list of foods over the preceding year. The questionnaire showed acceptable validity and reproducibility for fruits and vegetables, with a de-attenuated Pearson correlation of 0.49 and an intraclass correlation of 0.57 for this food group. Blood samples were analyzed for fasting glucose and a full lipid profile, and dyslipidemia and diabetes were classified according to standard clinical guidelines. Severity of disease was quantified by the number of stenotic coronary arteries, and the researchers used both binary and ordinal logistic regression models to test whether fruit and vegetable intake related not only to the presence of PCAD but also to how severe it was.

The results were striking. In the fully adjusted model, participants in the highest quartile of fruit intake had 91 percent lower odds of PCAD than those in the lowest quartile, with an odds ratio of 0.09. For vegetables, the corresponding odds ratio was 0.04, a 97 percent reduction, and for total fruits and vegetables combined it was 0.05, a 95 percent reduction. The dose-response pattern was consistent, with each successive quartile of intake showing progressively lower risk and a highly significant trend across categories. Critically, the associations held within individual ethnic groups, including Azari, Fars, Gilak, Kurd, and a combined category of smaller groups, suggesting the protective pattern transcends cultural and culinary differences across the region.

The protective association extended to disease severity as well. Compared with the lowest intake quartile, the highest quartile of fruit consumption was associated with a 93 percent reduction in the odds of severe PCAD in the crude model, and this estimate barely changed after adjustment for confounders. For vegetables, the highest intake category was linked to a 97 percent reduction in severe disease, and combined fruit and vegetable intake showed a similarly powerful inverse relationship with severity. Sex-stratified analyses confirmed the pattern in both men and women, with top-quartile vegetable intake associated with odds ratios of 0.06 in males and 0.03 in females in the fully adjusted models.

To test the robustness of the findings, the researchers performed sensitivity analyses excluding participants with major cardiovascular risk factors, including diabetes, hypertension, and smoking. The inverse associations persisted in these restricted samples, with the highest intake categories of fruits, vegetables, and combined fruits and vegetables all retaining statistically significant protective odds ratios. This suggests the observed relationship was not simply an artifact of the presence or absence of the most obvious clinical risk factors, although the authors themselves caution that the very large effect sizes should be interpreted carefully, since residual confounding by other lifestyle factors and measurement error in dietary assessment may partly contribute to the magnitude of the estimates.

The biological plausibility of these findings rests on well-characterized mechanisms. Fruits and vegetables are dense in soluble and insoluble dietary fiber, vitamins, carotenoids, flavonoids, minerals, and antioxidants. Soluble fiber slows gastric emptying and blunts postprandial rises in blood glucose and lipids, while viscous fibers can interfere with lipid and bile acid metabolism and lower serum LDL cholesterol. Both fiber types promote satiety through stomach distension and gut hormone signaling, supporting weight control and improved glucose metabolism over time. Antioxidants in plant foods help neutralize reactive oxygen species, which otherwise accelerate the oxidation of LDL cholesterol and the formation of foam cells and atherosclerotic plaques. Plant-rich diets also reduce inflammation, blood pressure, and platelet aggregation, and emerging evidence suggests they favorably shape the gut microbiota, whose fermentation products, the short-chain fatty acids, play roles in glucose, lipid, and cholesterol metabolism and immune regulation.

The study aligns with a substantial body of prior evidence. A 2017 dose-response meta-analysis of 66 studies found that each additional serving of fruits and vegetables per day was associated with roughly a 4 percent reduced risk of coronary heart disease, and that consuming 550 to 600 grams of vegetables daily was linked to a 30 percent lower risk of CHD. A 2020 meta-analysis reported that higher fruit consumption was associated with reductions of 9 to 18 percent in the incidence of cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, and stroke, while combined fruit and vegetable intake lowered disease incidence by 7 to 18 percent and related mortality by 11 to 27 percent. These estimates are far more modest than the odds ratios in the new study, a difference the authors attribute partly to the case-control design, the contrast between very low and very high intake levels, and the possibility of reverse causality, since subclinical disease may have influenced the dietary habits of cases before diagnosis.

Despite these limitations, which also include inevitable recall and selection bias and a marked imbalance between male and female participants, the study stands out as one of the largest investigations of diet and premature coronary disease in the Middle East, strengthened by angiography-confirmed diagnoses, standardized protocols across centers, and an ethnically diverse cohort. The authors conclude that promoting fruit and vegetable consumption is a simple and effective strategy for reducing PCAD risk, and they recommend that clinicians emphasize dietary interventions for at-risk individuals while public health initiatives improve access to fresh produce. They also call for well-designed randomized clinical trials to confirm the findings and clarify the mechanisms, noting that while the direction of the association is clear, the exact size of the protective effect remains to be pinned down with certainty.

Subject of Research: The association between fruit and vegetable consumption and the risk of premature coronary artery disease

Article Title: Association Between Fruits and Vegetables Consumption and Premature Coronary Artery Disease (PCAD): A Multi‐Center Case Control Study

Article References: Mohammadifard, N., Aghakhani, S., Zarepur, E., Khosravi Farsani, A., Azdaki, N., Salehi, N., Lotfizadeh, M., Ghaffari, S., Salari, A., Cheraghi, M., Assareh, A., Hassannejad, R., Soleimani, A., & Sarrafzadegan, N. (2026). Association Between Fruits and Vegetables Consumption and Premature Coronary Artery Disease ( PCAD ): A Multi‐Center Case Control Study. Food Science & Nutrition, 14(10), Article e72371. https://doi.org/10.1002/fsn3.72371

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1002/fsn3.72371

Keywords: premature coronary artery disease, fruits and vegetables, cardiovascular disease, case-control study, diet, Iran, coronary angiography, nutrition, dietary fiber, antioxidants, heart disease prevention, ethnicity