ABSTRACT
Dairy products play a prominent role in the human diet and economy worldwide, with some ripened industrial or protected designation of origin (PDO) cheeses being luxury and/or delicacy products. However, they can also be a source of health concerns to humans, as they can be vehicle for pathogens or toxins causing serious foodborne disease outbreaks. In recent years, there has been an increased awareness that dairy-borne biogenic amines (BAs) can cause health conditions of various severity degrees spanning from a mild headache or ephemeral discomfort to deadly cancer diseases. Therefore, increased interest has been given to BA contamination of dairy in terms of incidence, risk assessment, and possibly the provision of mandatory regulatory standards. To this end, the development of reliable, cost-effective, and easy-to-perform analytical methods, when possible on the production site, is a crucial step. Many reliable methods have been used to accurately determine the levels of various types of BAs in dairy products. However, they remain hindered by many limitations, such as the high cost, the long time required for their performance, and/or the need for skilled operators. This chapter discusses the relevance of BAs to dairy products from safety standpoint with an emphasis on the analytical methods and their future developments, as key tools that provide objective measurements of BA contents in dairy products. Accurate detection and quantification of these natural toxins in dairy products by using the easiest and most convenient methods help generate enough data in a short time and at low cost, thereby promoting better understanding of their incidence and help to determine the real risk they pose to human health. This, in turn, will represent a sound basis to perform meaningful risk assessment studies and consequently design efficient control means.
