The authority did not identify a safe amount of titanium dioxide that could be consumed.
European food safety regulators have since labeled titanium dioxide as no longer safe for human consumption, due to its potential toxicity.
A 2016 review by the European Food Safety Authority concluded that titanium dioxide absorption is extremely low and any absorbed particles are mostly excreted through feces (17Trusted Source).
The FDA has not updated its general guidance on safety assessments since 2007. Within that time, there has been a significant increase in research on the confluence of toxicology, nanotechnology and human health. The EU updates its guidance regularly with new science available to offer proper safety assessments, with its most recent update published in 2021.
We've used titanium dioxide safely for decades. However, recently its safety was called into question.
At CRIS, we've explored the safety of titanium dioxide for nearly half a decade, including conducting double-blind research to test the safety of food-grade titanium dioxide (E171). Our study shows that when exposed to food-grade titanium dioxide in normal conditions, research animals did not experience adverse health outcomes.
It's important to emphasize that in a National Institutes of Health study, experimental animals were exposed to titanium dioxide in amounts as high as 5% of their diet for a lifetime and showed no evidence of adverse effects.
A handful of studies greatly influenced the decisions made by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Unfortunately, these studies did not consider that titanium dioxide exposure comes from food, not drinking water. Additionally, CRIS researchers could not reproduce the adverse outcomes identified by the studies through typical food ingestion. Regardless, the EFSA banned E171 as a food ingredient and for use in other capacities in the summer of 2022.
In 2022, the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada maintained that the scientific evidence supports that titanium dioxide (E171) is safe for humans to use and consume.
Unfortunately, we studied that all of the above methods are employed after machining or forming, and they require a long process chain and costly production types of equipment [21–24]. Therefore, we proposed a titanium alloy implant preparation process that integrated with cutting and surface modification. The oxygen-rich atmosphere increases the partial pressure of oxygen in the oxidizing environment, and the heat generated during the cutting process increases the temperature and the rate of the oxidation. It uses the cutting heat and oxygen-rich atmosphere generated during the cutting process to form the oxide film (TiO2) to improve the corrosion resistance of the titanium alloy. The experimental equipment is shown in Figure 2. Since the cutting temperature is the most important factor in the oxide film formation process, this paper carried out researches based on theoretical analysis and experimental investigation to acquire an ideal temperature range for the cutting process to achieve the oxide layer.
