Organic mercury: an environmental threat to the health of dietary-exposed societies?

Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, University of Aarhus, Denmark. JCH@MIL.AAV.DK

As a natural element, mercury is ubiquitous in the environment. The largest amount of mercury, amounting to approximately 100,000 tons per year, originates from the degassing of the earth's crust. To this amount, such anthropogenic activities as combustion of fossil fuels and releases from industrial activities add approximately 20,000 tons of mercury every year. The emitted mercury, both natural and anthropogenic, is in an inorganic form, predominantly as the metallic vapor (Hgzero). In aquatic environments, however, inorganic mercury is microbiologically transformed into the lipophilic organic compound, methylmercury. The transformation from the hydrophilic to the lipophilic state makes mercury more prone to biomagnification in aquatic food chains. Consequently, populations with a traditionally high dietary intake of food originating from either fresh-water or marine environments have the highest exposure to methylmercury. Because of their traditional pursuit of marine mammals, the Inuits belong to the highest dietary exposure group /1/. This situation is particularly true for the Polar Eskimos in North West Greenland. This population has the most traditional lifestyle among the Inuits and hunts predatory species of whales, such as beluga and narwhal, a combination that results in a high level of exposure to methylmercury. Polar Eskimos in North West Greenland, living in areas with no 'accidental' mercury pollution, but with a high dietary access to methylmercury thus exemplify a population group with a current potential environmental health problem.

PMID: 9273927 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]