Mercury in Fish

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brimming with Life since time immemorial

The story of mercury in fish, and particularly in seafood, is a complex one. Yes ... it is very important to be concerned with the mercury content of fish and seafood, but for entirely different reasons.

Here then, is the real story of mercury.

First of all, there is nothing poisonous - at least there did not used to be anything poisonous until fairly recently - in the seas. This includes mercury. And the seas have brimmed with life for endless eons.

The seas - and consequently, all living organisms in the seas - have always, ever since the world began, contained trace amounts (4.9 x 10‾7 parts per million)* of mercury. And so have the soils of the continents (0.05 parts per million)*, and therefore, every living thing which grows and lives in the seas or on the earth. Consequently, our daily average intake of mercury historically ranges from 0.004 to 0.02 mg*.

So, mercury has been part and parcel of Life since its beginnings, and has been incorporated into the metabolism of all but the most primitive organisms for endless eons. Consequently, therefore, human muscle typically contains between 0.02 - 0.7 ppm of mercury, our bones contain about 0.45 ppm, and our blood contains about 0.0078 mg dm ‾3 of mercury*. This is natural. Indeed, there are indications that our bodies actually need a microminiscule trace of mercury in order to be and remain healthy.

Consequently, most people tolerate mercury quite well - as demonstrated by those hundreds of millions of people with mercury amalgam tooth fillings which constantly leach mercury into their system. There appear to be no ill effects, and many people live well into old age - their high eighties and nineties - without any apparent ill effects from the mercury amalgam. Others though, a small minority, suffer severely from mercury poisoning which can include a wide variety of symptoms - see SYMPTOMS OF MERCURY POISONING in these pages.

What is the difference? It's exposure. As detailed below, in addition to the natural and harmless levels of mercury in our environment, we are now subjected to many sources of mercury pollution, foremost among them mercury particles in the air which we absorb simply by breathing.

Mercury pollution varies greatly from region to region, and consequently, so does mercury tolerance. Living close to and downwind from a coal or gas fired power generation station would be one major factor of mercury vapour in the air, for instance, and coupled with mercury amalgam fillings, and eating lots of seafood, could easily put a person "over the top".

Getting rid of their mercury amalgam fillings is usually sufficient to eliminate all the mercury poisoning symptoms among these people and regain their good health. A good example is the long term Seychelles study (15 years and ongoing), where 12 meals of fish from the sea per week is typical, and where no ill effects whatsoever have been found among mothers, and more importantly and significantly, among their children (see below).

So, if you live far from coal fired power stations, smelters and other industrial furnaces, live far form mercury manufacturing facilities, and have no mercury amalgam fillings, as the Seychelles Islanders do, you can eat all the fish you like, to as much as almost 2 seafood meals per day. However, if you live and work in an area with significant or high mercury pollution, and are subject to other sources of mercury pollution, you need to be careful with the frequency of seafood in your nutrition.

Too Much Mercury:

However, we are getting far too much mercury from other sources now-a-days. The highest amount of mercury in our bodies now comes from breathing in mercury vapour in the air. This mercury vapour comes from the exhaust of coal fired power generation stations and other large coal and oil burning installations. Coal has its origin in what aeons ago were forests which were buried and compressed by plate tectonics. And the trees of these archaic forest contained mercury, which they got, like all growing things, from the soil.

The second largest source of mercury is the mercury amalgam in dental fillings. These fillings constantly leach mercury into our system, and most people end up inadvertently eating their mercury fillings when they eventually fail and come out during a meal.

The smelting and production of mercury is another large source of mercury in our air, land and water. "As a product of industrial activity, over 300 tons of mercury are added to the atmosphere each year in Europe alone. With direct consequences for health and the surrounding environment, such heavy-metal emissions are coming under closer scrutiny." [Source: Optics Express 12, 551 (2004)]

Other sources of mercury are ground water, from disposal of mercury vapour lamps, mercury thermometers and thermostats and mercury switches in hood and trunk lights, when these things are crushed and/or dumped in landfills.

Yet another source of mercury are some cosmetics such as hair bleaches and skin creams (whiteners), as well as the mercury used as a preservative in most vaccines. The latter is particularly troubling for small children, as a small dose for an adult is a huge dose for a small child. Worse, current allowable amounts of all contaminants in humans are based upon their effects upon adults, leaving our small children at extreme high risk.

Avoiding Mercury:

For some people who are highly exposed to mercury - such as living close to and downwind to a coal fired power generating station, or other such large coal burning installation, replacing the mercury amalgam fillings in their mouth brings quick and effective relief from the symptoms of mercury poisoning, as our bodies purge excess mercury from our system in about 3 weeks.

In severe cases of mercury poisoning, moving far away from coal fired power generating stations is another effective means of substantially reducing one's exposure to excess mercury.

Making sure that the cosmetics being used do not contain mercury is another effective means of reducing our exposure to excess mercury.

And avoid all fresh water fish - which are far more polluted than deep sea fish - and the largest predatory ocean going fish (mercury is concentrated in fish at the top of the marine fish-eat-fish food chain) - such as shark, swordfish, albacore tuna (white tuna is ok) and whale.

Due to the general mercury pollution of our environment, the above steps are particularly important for pregnant women, women planning a pregnancy, and mothers of young children. These, then, are effective measures we can take to reduce our mercury exposure which lie within the realm of our influence. For the others, the only hope we have is to demand from our governments that the following sources of mercury in our environment must be eliminated.

Eliminating Mercury From Our Environment:

While the officials of most coal burning power generating and other such installations claim that scrubbing mercury from their exhaust is prohibitively expensive, this is not so. One such power generating station in New York State has installed state of the art mercury scrubbing technology and found it to be highly effective and of negligible additional cost.

A mandate from the federal government that all coal fired power generating stations and other such installations must scrub the mercury from their exhaust would eliminate the largest source of excess mercury in our bodies.

Banning mercury vapour lamps, thermometers, thermostats and switches - other alternatives are readily available - and mandating the elimination of all mercury pollution from all mercury smelting and manufacturing installations will also result in a substantial reduction of mercury in our environment.

Given that mercury has been part of the natural metabolism of all but the most primitive creatures ever since life began, the elimination of mercury exhaust from fossil fuel burning power generating stations and from dental fillings should reduce our exposure to excess mercury to a point where mercury in seafood should be of no concern or consequence.

Here then follows the mercury story as it has evolved, and keeps on evolving, in our time:

The Mercury Story

Mercury was unknown as a toxic pollutant - indeed it was widely used for all kinds of things, even as medicine early in this century - until circa the mid 1950's, as follows (from "the trace elements and man", by Henry A. Schroeder, M.D. [1978] - a renowned pioneer of the trace element story):

"Again in Japan, from 1953 to 1960, a factory making plastics dumped a catalyst, methyl mercury, into Minimata Bay. The methyl mercury was taken up by fish and shellfish, up to 50 ppm in fish and 85 ppm in shellfish. The local population subsisted largely on local fish, eating an estimated amount of half a pound a day, plus shellfish. A hundred-and-thirtyfour became ill after several months, and 48 died. Children were born with small brains; they were imbeciles. Sufferers had many nervous symptoms of bizarre natures. Many fish and some farm animals fed fish died. When the cause was suspected, the Japanese did a great deal of work on it, reproducing the disease in rats and cats by feeding them local fish. The factory was made to stop its pollution and no more cases appeared. The same diseases broke out in 49 people four years later in Niigata, from the same cause, and with the same cure. Six died. The disease is permanently disabling.

It was interesting that the bottom mud just outside Minimata Bay had no more mercury than background levels. Thus, this severe pollution with methyl mercury and probably inorganic mercury was confined to the bay. There were no cases in other parts of Japan, or anywhere else in the world, from eating fish."

High Seafood Consumption:

The typical Japanese diet includes at least one, and often more servings of seafood per day - usually for breakfast, for lunch (sushi) and for dinner. And the Japanese are - with the exceptions of the Hunzas, the Georgians of Russia, the Villacabambas of Ecuador, the Titicacans of Peru, and the Okinawans of Japan - the longest living and healthiest people on this Earth. A daily serving of fish or seafood is an equally as prominent feature of the traditional Chinese diet, and they are even healthier than the Japanese (see CANCER COMPARISON in these pages).

The first and most prominent symptoms of mercury poisoning are mental and psychological - severe irritability, moodiness, inability to concentrate, extreme fatigue, memory problems, difficulty speaking, and so forth - all of which are reversible with the elimination of mercury sources.

But despite the fact that Japan - as very small country which produces the world's 3rd largest economy - is far more polluted than most Western nations, the incidence of mental disorders and diseases - including Alzheimer's - in Japan affects only a minuscule 1% of the population, whereas in the Western World it stands at 14%. So, and despite their high seafood consumption, and their greater longevity, the Japanese have virtually no mental problems and disorders.

There was also a recent (November 2004) news item about a Japanese province whose inhabitants are well known for very high fish consumption, but have been found to harbour no more than 'background' levels of mercury in their bodies. The investigators attribute the very low mercury levels in these people to the relatively high green tea consumption of these people. (Heard on the news, late November or early December 2004; if anyone knows of the original source, please let me know).

And then there is this well known study - mostly because of the stir it has caused among the biomedical community - done at highly respected institutions.

Prenatal methylmercury exposure from ocean fish consumption in the Seychelles child development study

Gary J Myers, Philip W Davidson, Christopher Cox, Conrad F Shamlaye, Donna Palumbo, Elsa Cernichiari, Jean Sloane-Reeves, Gregory E Wilding, James Kost, Li-Shan Huang, Thomas W Clarkson

Department of Neurology (Prof G J Myers MD, D Palumbo PhD), Department of Pediatrics (Prof G J Myers, Prof P W Davidson PhD, J Sloane-Reeves MS), and Division of Epidemiology, Statistics, and Prevention � Cox PhD), National Institute for Child Health and Development, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, USA; Departments of Biostatistics and Computational Biology � Cox, G Wilding PhD, J Kost PhD, L-S Huang PhD) and Environmental Medicine (E Cernichiari MS, Prof T W Clarkson PhD), University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry; Ministry of Health, Republic of Seychelles � F Shamlaye MBChB)

Summary

Introduction: Exposure to methylmercury (MeHg) before birth can adversely affect children's neurodevelopment. The most common form of prenatal exposure is maternal fish consumption, but whether such exposure harms the fetus is unknown. We aimed to identify adverse neurodevelopmental effects in a fish-consuming population.

Methods: We investigated 779 mother-infant pairs residing in the Republic of Seychelles. Mothers reported consuming fish on average 12 meals per week. Fish in Seychelles contain much the same concentrations of MeHg as commercial ocean fish elsewhere. Prenatal MeHg exposure was determined from maternal hair growing during pregnancy. We assessed neurocognitive, language, memory, motor, perceptual-motor, and behavioural functions in children at age 9 years. The association between prenatal MeHg exposure and the primary endpoints was investigated with multiple linear regression with adjustment for covariates that affect child development.

Findings: Mean prenatal MeHg exposure was 6�9 parts per million (SD 4�5ppm). Only two endpoints were associated with prenatal MeHg exposure. Increased exposure was associated with decreased performance in the grooved pegboard using the non-dominant hand in males and improved scores in the hyperactivity index of the Conner's teacher rating scale. Covariates affecting child development were appropriately associated with endpoints.

Interpretation: These data do not support the hypothesis that there is a neurodevelopmental risk from prenatal MeHg exposure resulting solely from ocean fish consumption. [Source: Lancet 2003; 361: 1686-92]

Burning Questions:

Finally, we have to address a question which, to my knowledge, has not been asked or investigated. Mercury is produced and used - by far to the greatest extent - on land. Consequently, land should be far more mercury polluted than the oceans, for the following reasons.

Mercury is a heavy element and mercury pollution should precipitate quickly out of the atmosphere. Further, the continents constitute only about 30% of the Earth's surface, whereas the oceans constitute about 70% of the Earth surface. For the purpose of mercury polluted food we need only consider the 16 to 18 inches of top soil in which our crops are grown.

In stark contrast, the far larger oceans are miles deep. This, given a more or less uniform airborne mercury content of the atmosphere, the constant mixing of the ocean waters, plus the heaviness of mercury, massively dilutes the amount of suspended mercury pollution in the oceans as compared to land.

What all this boils down to is that our land should be massively more polluted with mercury than the oceans, everything being about equal. But everything is not about equal. Since mercury is produced on land, and is a heavy element, most of the mercury in the atmosphere should precipitate quickly onto land, and only a relatively small amount of mercury should travel far enough to precipitate in the oceans.

The consequence of all this is that seafood should be much less mercury polluted than food grown on land. It remains to be established, though, how much mercury exactly there is in our land grown food. Since it is well known that arctic wild life is heavily mercury polluted, and since this wild life obtains its food, in the primary and fundamental instance, from plant life, it follows that arctic vegetation must be heavily mercury polluted. This does not bode well for our food crops.

So, seafood should be far healthier for us than our land grown food. No one has done any studies on this though, as far as I know, and I am just going by the facts that the volume of the oceans is so immensely and incomparably greater than the volume of our agricultural land, and that we do not apply our agricultural poisons to seafood.

For Mothers And Mothers To Be:

Meanwhile, it remains crucially important for pregnant women, women planning to have children, and for mothers of young children, to avoid all the larger ocean going fish, such as shark, swordfish, tuna and whale meat in those countries where whale meat is eaten, all seafood from heavily polluted coastal waters, as well as all fresh water fish, from other than the most pristine environments.

But, and in order to obtain the crucially vital natural 72 trace elements and Omega-3 fatty acids for the physical and mental health of gestating and new babies and children, it is just as crucially important for mothers and mothers to be, to include at least 4 ounces of seafood in their daily nutrition, consisting of all the smaller and little fish, up to and including herring (particularly good for its high content of Omega-3 fatty acids), cod and wild salmon; (farmed salmon spend all their lives in heavily polluted coastal waters, and in addition to higher levels of mercury contain high levels of PCBs and Dioxins).

There has been a sharp increase of babies born in recent years who suffer from heart defects, uro-genital defects and mental problems, such as Attention Deficit Disorder, Hyper Activity with Attention Deficit Disorder, Down Syndrome and Autism. Most of these problems, if not all of them, can be traced to trace element deficiencies in the mother.

Finally then, and since our whole world is polluted now, each person must weigh the alternatives and make a choice between higher levels of mercury in one's system - which appear to be well tolerated by our bodies by all but the most highly exposed people - and deadly, devastating diseases, and devastating birth defects which condemn us and our children either to an early death, or to lifelong mental and physical disabilities.

A Quick, Effective and Easy Long Term Solution:

It remains to be said that the valid and only long term solution is the restitution of the complete natural range of the 72 trace elements in all agricultural soils, hence in all its products, and hence again, in all of our daily food. This results in a massive increase in our public and personal health [see SUPREME HEALTH in these pages] and makes the daily seafood routine unnecessary.

However, since a supremely healthy population does not sit well with the vested interests of the medical industry, and since this may take forever, or even longer, to be implemented by our governments, we can go ahead now and grow 72 trace element food ourselves, and by voting with our dollars, encourage local market gardeners and farmers to grow 72 trace element food. This can be done easily, just by using kelp meal, seaweed and/or fish fertilizers in their soils, and in their livestock feed. We could have 72 trace element food beginning in a few months, and even in a couple of weeks in the case of eggs, as soon as egg farmers start including kelp or fish meal in their chicken feed. This, by the way, will also prevent the Bird Flu in their stocks.

* ["The Elements", Second Edition, John Emsley, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993].

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All comments are most welcome, and I'll gladly answer any questions you may have. pweis@shaw.ca