{"id":243861,"date":"2026-09-10T01:26:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T06:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/cacao-genetics-could-help-breeders-reduce-heavy-metal-levels-in-cocoa-beans"},"modified":"2026-09-10T01:26:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T06:26:02","slug":"cacao-genetics-could-help-breeders-reduce-heavy-metal-levels-in-cocoa-beans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/cacao-genetics-could-help-breeders-reduce-heavy-metal-levels-in-cocoa-beans","title":{"rendered":"Cacao genetics could help breeders reduce heavy metal levels in cocoa beans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/cacao-genetics-could-help-breeders-reduce-heavy-metal-levels-in-cocoa-beans.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cadmium is a naturally occurring, toxic heavy metal found in many soils across Latin America and the Caribbean, where cacao trees are widely cultivated. It makes its way into cocoa seeds, called beans, that are roasted and made into chocolate, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)\u2014but some cacao varieties take up less of the toxic element than others. An international team of researchers, including Penn State scientists, found genetic differences in how two varieties managed cadmium uptake and facilitated the metal\u2019s movement throughout the plant.<\/p>\n<p>The findings\u2014published this week (Sept. 8) in <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s11104-026-08980-z\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Plant and Soil<\/i><\/a>\u2014may be an early step toward breeding cacao that accumulates less cadmium, according to the collaborators from Penn State and Corporaci\u00f3n Colombiana de Investigaci\u00f3n Agropecuaria\u2013AGROSAVIA (the Colombian Agricultural Research Corporation).<\/p>\n<p>While trace amounts of cadmium in chocolate don\u2019t present a serious risk to public health, long-term exposure to too much cadmium can lead to bone fragility as well as kidney and lung damage, explained one of the study\u2019s two senior authors, Siela Maximova, research professor of plant biotechnology in Penn State\u2019s College of Agricultural Sciences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cadmium is a naturally occurring, toxic heavy metal found in many soils across Latin America and the Caribbean, where cacao trees are widely cultivated. It makes its way into cocoa seeds, called beans, that are roasted and made into chocolate, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)\u2014but some cacao varieties [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,1495],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}