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T-2 and HT-2 toxins

In the body: EFSA’s limit rests on a fall in white blood cells seen in animal studies.

The one rated food, Oat drink, unsweetened, fortified, needs no cap on how often you eat it: about 1.3 kg, eaten alone, reaches the daily limit.

Builds up over time. Agencies set an amount you can take in every week, or every day, for life. A food measured against it shows the grams that reach it.

All hazards

The limit

  • The agency’s figure0.02 µg/kg body weight/day
  • For a 70 kg adult1.4 µg a day
  • Basistolerable daily intake (TDI): what you can take in every day for life
    group tolerable daily intake (TDI) for the sum of T-2, HT-2 and their modified forms (EFSA CONTAM 2017); group acute acute reference dose (ARfD) 0.3 µg/kg body weight (benchmark dose lower limit (BMDL10) 3.33 µg T-2/kg body weight/day (leucocyte reduction, 90-day rat study), uncertainty factor 200)
  • Average adult intake Average adult intake is not shown yet: the agency estimate has not been read.
  • Source EFSA 2017

Reviewed foods that carry it

1 reviewed food carries it, 1 of them rated by dose.

Grams to the limit

Grams of each food that reach the limit in its window, for a 70 kg adult. Fewest first: those are the foods to watch.

  1. Oat drink, unsweetened, fortified

    Nothing to watch: under the limit for a 250 g serving

    1,300g
    reaches the limit in a day
    Counted from zero: this food eaten alone.
    0.276 µg per 250 g serving

    Dick 2025 · grade B

    How it’s rated

    No cap: EFSA's 2017 group tolerable daily intake for T-2 and HT-2 toxins is 0.02 µg/kg body weight/day, 1.4 µg/day for 70 kg (acute 0.3 µg/kg body weight, 21 µg). German oat drinks (31 samples) sum to 1.105 µg/L on the lower bound, so about 1,267 g a day (five servings), eaten alone, would reach it, and a serving carries 0.276 µg, 19.7% of the limit. On the sum of the two maxima (9.61 µg/L, possibly from different samples) about 146 g a day reaches it, and one 250 mL serving carries 2.4 µg, 172% of the limit and 11% of the acute dose; modified forms were not measured, so this is a floor.

    Intake: one 250 mL serving (250 g, density 1 assumed) a day, 70 kg adult · Level in the food: 1.105 µg/L (sum of T-2 mean (31 of 31 positive, so equal to the mean over all samples) and HT-2 mean over all n (0.833 mean of positives × 30/31 = 0.806); the paper reports means of positives only, n = 31)

    Measured on: Dick et al. 2025, Front Nutr 12:1709925: 31 oat-based plant milk alternatives from German local retailers and online platforms, UHPLC-MS/MS (quantification limit (quantification limit) T-2 0.04, HT-2 0.17 µg/L); organic and conventional oat drinks did not differ; free T-2 and HT-2 only, glucosides not measured

Sources