**5. Conclusions**

We performed an exposure assessment of Cd in female farmers, who are more vulnerable to Cd toxicity than males in Cd-polluted areas in Akita, Japan. Participants underwent local health examinations during 2001–2004, using the individual food analysis method with the Monte Carlo simulation. Results showed that Cd intake was higher than that by the general population, which was derived from local agricultural products, particularly rice, and also that their exposure levels to Cd were approximately the PTWI of JECFA or TWI of Japan.

**Supplementary Materials:** The following are available online at http://www.mdpi.com/2305-6304/8/2/44/s1, Table S1: Annual trend of rates of rice with a cadmium concentration above the safety standard (0.4 mg/kg) in the intensive inspections targeted for 3 cadmium-polluted areas in Akita prefecture, Japan, around the start of the flooding of paddy fields (2002).

**Author Contributions:** Formulating study protocols, F.K., H.H., and E.O.; collecting food items, H.H. and E.O.; health examinations, F.K., H.H., E.O., Y.H., S.S., and K.M.; advising about the diet study, S.S.; data curation, H.H.; statistical analyses, H.H. and A.O.; writing—original draft preparation, H.H.; visualization, H.H. and A.O.; funding acquisition, F.K. and H.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research project was supported by grants mainly from the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Japan, and in part from CREST-JST and a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) [20H03945] from the Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture of Japan.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors express special gratitude to JA Akita Kita and Kosaka Municipal Government as well as the subjects of this study for their corporation, to Shin Hasebe and Hinako Togashi for their guidance when collecting food items from local markets, to Koji Matsuno for measuring Cd concentrations in samples for the duplicate portion study, and Kentaro Murakami and Hitomi Okubo for helping with diet surveys.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
