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Risk Assessment of Mercury-Contaminated Fish Consumption in the Brazilian Amazon: An Ecological Study

Mercury is one of the most dangerous contaminants on the planet. In recent years, evidence of mercury contamination in the Amazon has significantly increased, notably due to gold-mining activities. Although mercury contamination in fish has consistently been documented, little is known about the ris...

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Autores principales: Basta, Paulo Cesar, de Vasconcellos, Ana Claudia Santiago, Hallwass, Gustavo, Yokota, Decio, Pinto, Daniel de Oliveira d’El Rei, de Aguiar, Danicley Saraiva, de Souza, Ciro Campos, Oliveira-da-Costa, Marcelo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10535031/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37755810
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxics11090800
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author Basta, Paulo Cesar
de Vasconcellos, Ana Claudia Santiago
Hallwass, Gustavo
Yokota, Decio
Pinto, Daniel de Oliveira d’El Rei
de Aguiar, Danicley Saraiva
de Souza, Ciro Campos
Oliveira-da-Costa, Marcelo
author_facet Basta, Paulo Cesar
de Vasconcellos, Ana Claudia Santiago
Hallwass, Gustavo
Yokota, Decio
Pinto, Daniel de Oliveira d’El Rei
de Aguiar, Danicley Saraiva
de Souza, Ciro Campos
Oliveira-da-Costa, Marcelo
author_sort Basta, Paulo Cesar
collection PubMed
description Mercury is one of the most dangerous contaminants on the planet. In recent years, evidence of mercury contamination in the Amazon has significantly increased, notably due to gold-mining activities. Although mercury contamination in fish has consistently been documented, little is known about the risk associated with fish consumption by populations in urban areas of the Amazon. We sampled 1010 fish sold in public markets in six state capitals and 11 additional cities. Mercury levels were determined for each specimen, and the evaluation of the health risks associated with consuming mercury-contaminated fish was conducted according to the methodology proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO). Our study reveals that more than one-fifth (21.3%) of the fish sold in urban centers had mercury levels above the safe limits (≥0.5 µg/g) established by the Brazilian Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA). The prevalence of Hg contamination ≥0.5 µg/g was approximately 14 times higher in carnivorous than in noncarnivorous fish. The analysis of the risk attributable to fish consumption reveals that daily mercury intake exceeded the reference dose recommended by the U.S. EPA in all population groups analyzed, reaching up to 7 and 31 times in women of childbearing age and children from 2 to 4 years old, respectively. However, these risks are diverse depending on the type of fish consumed and must be considered to formulate appropriate nutritional guidelines for safe fish consumption by the local community.
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spelling pubmed-105350312023-09-29 Risk Assessment of Mercury-Contaminated Fish Consumption in the Brazilian Amazon: An Ecological Study Basta, Paulo Cesar de Vasconcellos, Ana Claudia Santiago Hallwass, Gustavo Yokota, Decio Pinto, Daniel de Oliveira d’El Rei de Aguiar, Danicley Saraiva de Souza, Ciro Campos Oliveira-da-Costa, Marcelo Toxics Article Mercury is one of the most dangerous contaminants on the planet. In recent years, evidence of mercury contamination in the Amazon has significantly increased, notably due to gold-mining activities. Although mercury contamination in fish has consistently been documented, little is known about the risk associated with fish consumption by populations in urban areas of the Amazon. We sampled 1010 fish sold in public markets in six state capitals and 11 additional cities. Mercury levels were determined for each specimen, and the evaluation of the health risks associated with consuming mercury-contaminated fish was conducted according to the methodology proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO). Our study reveals that more than one-fifth (21.3%) of the fish sold in urban centers had mercury levels above the safe limits (≥0.5 µg/g) established by the Brazilian Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA). The prevalence of Hg contamination ≥0.5 µg/g was approximately 14 times higher in carnivorous than in noncarnivorous fish. The analysis of the risk attributable to fish consumption reveals that daily mercury intake exceeded the reference dose recommended by the U.S. EPA in all population groups analyzed, reaching up to 7 and 31 times in women of childbearing age and children from 2 to 4 years old, respectively. However, these risks are diverse depending on the type of fish consumed and must be considered to formulate appropriate nutritional guidelines for safe fish consumption by the local community. MDPI 2023-09-21 /pmc/articles/PMC10535031/ /pubmed/37755810 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxics11090800 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Basta, Paulo Cesar
de Vasconcellos, Ana Claudia Santiago
Hallwass, Gustavo
Yokota, Decio
Pinto, Daniel de Oliveira d’El Rei
de Aguiar, Danicley Saraiva
de Souza, Ciro Campos
Oliveira-da-Costa, Marcelo
Risk Assessment of Mercury-Contaminated Fish Consumption in the Brazilian Amazon: An Ecological Study
title Risk Assessment of Mercury-Contaminated Fish Consumption in the Brazilian Amazon: An Ecological Study
title_full Risk Assessment of Mercury-Contaminated Fish Consumption in the Brazilian Amazon: An Ecological Study
title_fullStr Risk Assessment of Mercury-Contaminated Fish Consumption in the Brazilian Amazon: An Ecological Study
title_full_unstemmed Risk Assessment of Mercury-Contaminated Fish Consumption in the Brazilian Amazon: An Ecological Study
title_short Risk Assessment of Mercury-Contaminated Fish Consumption in the Brazilian Amazon: An Ecological Study
title_sort risk assessment of mercury-contaminated fish consumption in the brazilian amazon: an ecological study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10535031/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37755810
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxics11090800
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