Thread: Interesting studies on mercury

I read this back last year and haywire recent post about the king sparking brought this back to me. So here are a couple links some may find interesting.

Does Selenium Neutralize Mercury? | About Seafood

The Truth About Toxic Mercury in Fish

I for one find this interesting as I have went into a little research on the subject myself. I looked into other countries that have seafood as a staple in the diets of the people and found that aside from countries that eat large predatory fish mainly sharks and billfish have very low issues with mercury causing health problems. The reason the ones that consume billfish and sharks do is because certain billfish and most all large sharks have higher amounts of mercury than selenium due to the stacking effects of small fish to large fish consumption that mercury exhibits. In case some of you don't know, which I am sure most of you do, the way mercury stacking works is: a small fish has small amounts of mercury in (in most cases)well then a larger fish eats the smaller fish,the larger fish already has more mercury in its system so when it consumes the smaller fish the mercury in the smaller fish cannot be digested and expelled as waste as it binds to the proteins in the larger fish elevating the mercury in the larger fish,then this happens all other again when the larger fish is yet again eaten by an even larger fish. This is not always the cause of large amounts of mercury in fish though as age also plays a part in the concentration of mercury in the proteins of a fish. A perfect example is the orange roughy which only grows to a maximum size of about 15 pounds. Mercury can cause several adverse affects on the body, mainly to the brain, such as ADHD, Alzheimers, Autism, dementia and the all to common senior moments, that we all know isn't proprietary to seniors lol. Most of the countries that I have looked into actually have lower rates of these mental issues. This issues are lower but not non-existent, as genetics will still play a part in some people inheriting these mental issues at birth.

On the selenium vs mercury neutralization studies...

So we are feeling fairly confident now that ocean fish consumption prevents, rather than contributes to causing mercury toxicity.

Nicholas Ralston (Univ of ND) Boimedical Scientist: Energy and Environmental Research Center

More interesting reading @ Selenium Helps Remove Mercury from the Body

There are also articles disputing that selenium helps remove mercury effectively, so I am not sure what the truth is there. Bottom line, I will not worry about eating any type of fish until there are actual adverse symptoms strongly connected to their consumption. Look at the problems in the American diet today -- does too much fish rank near the top? I would steer pregnant women away from 40+ pound kings and not think twice about it outside that.

You hit it on the head Pierless. I feel the same way. Also, if I worry about that, it is just as likely there is something else out there that will kill me.

The reason I don't eat kings is because the meat is not white like most fish, but a gray look that reminds me of metal because the mercury thing has in my head for the last several years. Sorry Y'all,got to go because I have a chicken on the grill......... critter was maybe a month old, but due to all the steroids that were pumped into the little thing and generations before, was an 8lb bird in a couple months instead of one half in size in twice the time. But first I have to finish off this bag of pork skins and 8'' cheese stick......

Funny how so many things they said were bad for us are now good for us (in moderation), and the chemical filled healthy substitutes are now bad for us.
Keyword: Moderation. Everything in moderation.
Drinking too much water is toxic and will kill you, see 'Water Toxemia'.