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Hair mercury level of coastal communities in Malaysia: a linkage with fish consumption

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Abstract

Hair mercury level was assessed in four coastal communities in Malaysia with relation to fish consumption between gender, age, and rural and urban area. Mercury level was found at a range of 0.01–21.00 (μg/g dry wt). The average mercury levels were 13.69, 10.85, 9.94, and 6.78 μg/g dry wt for communities in Kedah, Terengganu, Johor, and Selangor, respectively. The same order was found for the average monthly fish consumption, that is 14,620 ± 878, 9,966 ± 563, 8,939 ± 793, and 8,169 ± 658 g/month for communities in the four respective regions. A highly significant positive correlation between hair mercury concentration and fish consumption was observed in all communities. This gives an insight that fish consumption is a significant route of mercury exposure for the coastal communities. Females had higher hair mercury concentration than what males had. Mercury exposure of communities in rural area was higher when compared to that in urban. However, mercury level in all Malaysian communities studied was much lower than no observable adverse effect level (NOAEL) of WHO, that is 50 mg/g dry wt.

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Acknowledgments

We thank The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Malaysia, which has sponsored this research under EScience Fund Project No. UPM0002449.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Food Safety Research Center, Faculty of Food Science and Technology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

    Parvaneh Hajeb, Jinap Selamat, Fatimah Abu Bakar, Jamilah Bakar & Hanifah Nuryani Lioe

  2. Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

    Ahmad Ismail

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  1. Parvaneh Hajeb
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  2. Jinap Selamat
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Correspondence to Jinap Selamat.

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Hajeb, P., Selamat, J., Ismail, A. et al. Hair mercury level of coastal communities in Malaysia: a linkage with fish consumption. Eur Food Res Technol 227, 1349–1355 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00217-008-0851-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00217-008-0851-9

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