The FDA's Code of Federal Regulations allows for the legal, regulated use of titanium dioxide in food products, under some restrictions.

The compound in the Asia Pacific market experienced a mixed trends throughout the fourth quarter of 2021. These market attitudes were mostly related to lower operational loads at Chinese domestic manufacturing plants.

Neutral

In a review published in 2022 in the journal Archives of Toxicology, researchers found that the ingestion of E171 is a “a definite health risk for consumers and their progeny.” After reviewing dozens of in vivo, ex vivo and in vitro studies on the toxicity of E171, the researchers wrote that two facts must be noted: “First, reprotoxicity studies show that animals of both sexes are impacted by the toxicity of these nanoparticles, underlining the importance of conducting in vivo studies using both male and female animals. Second, human exposure begins in utero via maternal-fetal transfer and continues after birth by breastfeeding. Children are then chronically re-exposed due to their food preferences. To be relevant to the human in vivo situation, experimental studies should therefore consider nanoparticle exposure with respect to the age or life period of the studied population.”