I wrote my last critique on a study of heavy metals in fish.
Essentially, the authors bought fish from a number of vendors in New Jersey and measured the concentration of several heavy metals, including mercury, arsenic, lead, and some others.
They found, essentially, that the fish you can buy in supermarkets is from so many different sources that it is nearly impossible to make general statements about the concentrations of metals in those fish. The concentrations of those metals depends on where the fish came from, whether they were farmed or wild, what they ate, and obviously what type of fish it is.
Further, they discovered that despite all the furor over this issue, there are very few recommendations about and/or regulations of metal concentrations in fish. The FDA has one recommendation for mercury and no others. A variety of other NGOs and non-profit organizations have recommendations for others, but there is no comprehensive set of regulations, and many of the existing regulations are more than twenty years old.
The authors did piece together some numbers to work with, however, and found that while most of the fish were under the safe limits, some of them were significantly over the limits. The limits they calculated were based on an 8oz portion of fish once a week, and the averages concentrations of metals were under the safe limit. What all this means is that you're probably OK as long as you're not eating fish every night.
As for me, I ate salmon last night. It was delicious.
Full article is here, but may require an Emory subscription
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WDS-4G3YDKR-1&_user=655046&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000034138&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=655046&md5=4bbf7aed02f5fed5ae704058dc886f56
Abstract is here
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16307983?dopt=Abstract
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I found this video on youtube...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZpm-OOYG3A
According to the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) they basically claim that fish is rather harmless. the NFI continually question the credibility of Jeremy Piven and his stance on mercury in fish in this video.
I guess the NFI doesn't want people to stop buying their fish...
I remember reading/discussing that certain fish have higher levels of mercury. Does this have something to do with the biology of certain fish species or is it more about where they are found?
I remember hearing that swordfish are a species with high mercury content. This made me very sad because I ate some delicious swordfish ravioli last semester.
After reading the article "Missing Mercury and High Fructose Corn Syrup" now I look at the labels of everything I eat to see if it contains any HFCS and most foods list HFCS as an ingredient but it is not the first or second on the list so I guess that's good. It still concerns me and I hope more research will be done to see what levels are acceptable and what aren't.
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