Duplicate diet study on fishing communities in the United Kingdom: Mercury exposure in a “critical group”

Abstract

Duplicates of a week's diet of 119 individuals from fishing communities in the areas around the northeastern Irish Sea, an area affected by the industrial discharge of mercury, have been examined for their total concentrations of mercury and selenium. (Fish consumption varied from 10–225 g/day with approximately 50% of each population having a consumption greater than 50 g/day.) Total weekly intakes of mercury varied between 4 and 443 μg/70 kg body wt, compared with intakes varying from 4 to 560 μg/70 kg body wt in 55 individuals from fishing communities in the southern reaches of the English Channel who acted as a reference group. Total weekly selenium intakes varied from 171 to 1272 μg/70 kg body wt in the northeastern Irish Sea, compared with 127 to 1685 μg/70 kg body wt in the reference area. The concentrations of total mercury in whole blood in the communities around the Irish Sea ranged from 0.04 to 2.58 μg/100 ml, compared with concentrations ranging from 0.04 to 1.21 μg/100 ml in the reference group. Concentrations of mercury in hair ranged from 0.1 to 11.3 mg/kg in the northeastern group (with the exception of a contaminated sample with a concentration of 60 mg/kg) and from 0.4 to 5.8 mg/kg in the reference group. On the basis of these studies it is concluded that there are unlikely to be any consumers of fish in the United Kingdom who are adversely affected by the presence of methyl mercury in fish.