Sandra Lage was part of the team at the Center for Marine Sciences (CCMAR) at UAlg that analysed 25 sea snails, captured between November 2021 and October 2022, and told Lusa news agency that the results show that 76% had tetrodotoxin levels above the maximum limit considered safe for human consumption by the European Food Safety Agency.

The sea snail is often used to make dishes such as feijoada, but its consumption can pose health risks if the neurotoxin is not properly eliminated through effective evisceration before ingestion, the researcher warned.

According to Sandra Lage, the study, which was the master's dissertation of Maria Pais, first author of the article published in the magazine “Food Control”, 25 sea snails were captured over a year of sampling and it was found that 76% contained the toxin in concentrations not considered safe for human consumption.

It is a neurotoxin that can “only cause some gastrointestinal problems” in low doses, but in high concentrations, “and if it is an elderly person or a child, it can even lead to cardiorespiratory arrest or even cause death", he explained.

Sandra Lage highlighted that, in addition to the scientific work, there are public health reasons at stake and considered that it is important to alert the population to the presence of this neurotoxin, which “was found exclusively in the visceral part, in the intestine, in the stomach, in the bladder, but which was not present in the muscle part”.

“If handled correctly, it does not pose a risk, but if handled incorrectly, it can pose a risk,” she said, noting that boiling or freezing the sea snails does not eliminate the toxin and that consumption is only safe with effective and proper removal of the viscera.

Finding the cause of the contamination of the sea snails will now be the objective of a new study by this CCMAR team, which already has funding for this purpose, the researcher pointed out, estimating that the work could begin this year.