Abstract
The offshore area of the South China Sea is an important fishing ground in China. We used a food frequency questionnaire to determine marine fish consumption by local residents, and we detected mercury concentrations in commonly consumed marine fish species. In total, 127.9 g/day of the marine fish consumed was identified in 178 local residents. THg and MeHg concentrations in 209 samples of 22 fish species ranged from 11.3 to 215.0 µg/kg wt and 2.0 to 160.0 µg/kg wt, respectively. The mean MeHg exposure from marine fish to local residents was 0.099 µg/kg bw, accounting for 43.0% of the provisional tolerated weekly intake (PTWI) (1.6 µg/kg bw/week), suggesting a low health risk. However, a potentially high health risk (202.2% of PTWI) was identified in those with 97.5% MeHg exposure.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Gui-yuan Ji, Qi Jiang, Yan-jun Tang and Zhong-jun Dun from Guangdong Provincial Institute of Public Health, Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention for excellent support during the field work. We thank Shu-guang Hu, Jing Wang and Zu-jian Su from Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention for their supports in sample analysis.
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Chen, Sw., Chen, Zh., Wang, P. et al. Health Risk Assessment for Local Residents from the South China Sea Based on Mercury Concentrations in Marine Fish. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 101, 398–402 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-018-2388-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-018-2388-3