Pollution indicators,fish consumption and the accumulation of mercury in human hair |
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| Authors: | D Airey |
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| Institution: | Division of Oceanography, CSIRO Marine Laboratories, P.O. Box 21, Cronulla, NSW 2230, Australia |
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| Abstract: | Mercury can accumulate in the human body from fish and from other environmental sources, and the amount accumulated is indicated by hair mercury concentration. Anthropogenic mercury losses in many countries have been correlated with Gross National Product (GNP, an indicator of industrial activity), and industrial density (represented by GNP/land area, i.e. GNP/LA) has been used as an indicator of potential pollution for coastal fishing grounds. For a data set taken from the literature, 30% of the 54% variability in hair mercury concentrations explained by national fish consumption can also be explained by GNP/LA. However, using new data, the effect of GNP and GNP/LA on the amount of mercury accumulated in hair of people from many countries was insignificant compared to the effect of national fish consumption. 74.1% of the variability in the hair mercury levels of people who ate the same number of meals of fish was explained by the national average fish consumption. This suggests that fish species and fish size are more important than general indicators of mercury pollution when estimating the mercury accumulation in humans on an international scale. |
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