Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Selenium: Mercury Molar Ratios in Freshwater Fish in the Columbia River Basin: Potential Applications for Specific Fish Consumption Advisories

  • Published:
Biological Trace Element Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Fish provide a valuable source of beneficial nutrients and are an excellent source of low fat protein. However, fish are also the primary source of methylmercury exposure in humans. Selenium often co-occurs with mercury and there is some evidence that selenium can protect against mercury toxicity yet States issue fish consumption advisories based solely on the risks that methylmercury pose to human health. Recently, it has been suggested the selenium: mercury molar ratio be considered in risk management. In order for agencies to utilize the ratio to set consumption guidelines, it is important to evaluate the variability in selenium and mercury in different fish species. We examined 10 different freshwater fish species found within the Columbia River Basin in order to determine the inter- and intra-specific variability in the selenium: mercury molar ratios and the selenium health benefit values. We found significant variation in selenium: mercury molar ratios. The mean molar ratios for each species were all above 1:1, ranging from 3.42:1 in Walleye to 27.2:1 in Chinook salmon. There was a positive correlation between both mercury and selenium with length for each fish species apart from yellow perch and rainbow trout. All species had health benefit values greater than 2. We observed considerable variability in selenium: mercury molar ratios within fish species collected in the Columbia River Basin. Although incorporating selenium: mercury molar ratios into fish consumption holds the potential for refining advisories and assessing the risk of methylmercury exposure, the current understanding of how these ratios apply is insufficient, and further understanding of drivers of variability in the ratios is needed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Sidhu KS (2003) Health benefits and potential risks related to consumption of fish or fish oil. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol 38:336–344

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Chan HM, Egeland GM (2004) Fish consumption, mercury exposure, and heart diseases. Nutr Rev 62(2):68

  3. Mahaffey KR (1999) Methylmercury: a new look at the risks. Public Health Rep 114(5):396

  4. Mozaffarian D (2009) Fish, mercury, selenium and cardiovascular risk: current evidence and unanswered questions. Int J Environ Res Public Health 6(6):1894–1916

  5. Rice DC (2004) The US EPA reference dose for methylmercury: sources of uncertainty. Environ Res 95(3):406-413

  6. Rice DC, Schoeny R, Mahaffey K (2003) Methods and rationale for derivation of a reference dose for methylmercury by the US EPA. Risk Anal 23(1):107–115

  7. Crump KS, Kjellström T, Shipp AM, Silvers A, Stewart A (1998) Influence of prenatal mercury exposure upon scholastic and psychological test performance: benchmark analysis of a New Zealand cohort. Risk Anal 18:701–713

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Grandjean P, Weihe P, White RF, Debes F (1998) Cognitive performance of children prenatally exposed to “safe” levels of methylmercury. Environ Res 77:165–172

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Grandjean P, Weihe P, White RF, Debes F, Araki S, Yokoyama K et al (1997) Cognitive deficit in 7-year-old children with prenatal exposure to methylmercury. Neurotoxicol Teratol 19:417–428

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Jedrychowski W, Jankowski J, Flak E, Skarupa A, Mroz E, Sochacka-Tatara E et al (2006) Effects of prenatal exposure to mercury on cognitive and psychomotor function in one-year-old infants: epidemiologic cohort study in Poland. Ann Epidemiol 16:439–447

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Oken E, Wright RO, Kleinman KP, Bellinger D, Amarasiriwardena CJ, Hu H et al (2005) Maternal fish consumption, hair mercury, and infant cognition in a US cohort. Environ Health Perspect:1376–1380

  12. Burger J, Gochfeld M (2012) Selenium and mercury molar ratios in saltwater fish from New Jersey: individual and species variability complicate use in human health fish consumption advisories. Environ Res 114:12–23

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  13. Choi AL, Cordier S, Weihe P, Grandjean P (2008) Negative confounding in the evaluation of toxicity: the case of methylmercury in fish and seafood. Crit Rev Toxicol 38:877–893

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  14. Gochfeld M, Burger J, Jeitner C, Donio M, Pittfield T (2012) Seasonal, locational and size variations in mercury and selenium levels in striped bass (Morone saxatilis) from New Jersey. Environ Res 112:8–19

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  15. Kaneko JJ, Ralston NV (2007) Selenium and mercury in pelagic fish in the central North Pacific near Hawaii. Biol Trace Elem Res 119:242–254

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) (1995) Guidance for assessing chemical contaminant data for use in fish advisories. volume 1: Fish sampling and analysis, 2nd ed. US EPA, Office of Water, Washington, DC. EPA 823-R-95-007

  17. Burger J, Gochfeld M, Jeitner C, Donio M, Pittfield T (2012a) Interspecific and intraspecific variation in selenium: mercury molar ratios in saltwater fish from the Aleutians: potential protection on mercury toxicity by selenium. Sci Total Environ 431:46–56

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  18. Eisler R. 1987. Mercury hazards to fish, wildlife, and invertebrates: a synoptic review.

  19. Rayman MP (2000) The importance of selenium to human health. Lancet 356:233–241

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Ralston NV, Azenkeng A, Ralston CR, III JLB, Raymond LJ. 2014. Selenium-health benefit values as seafood safety criteria. Seafood Science: Advances in Chemistry, Technology and Applications 433.

  21. Torres DP, Cadore S, Raab A, Feldmann J, Krupp EM (2014) Evaluation of dietary exposure of crabs to inorganic mercury or methylmercury, with or without co-exposure to selenium. J Anal At Spectrom 29:1273–1281

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Zhang H, Feng X, Chan HM, Larssen T (2014) New insights into traditional health risk assessments of mercury exposure: implications of selenium. Environmental science & technology 48:1206–1212

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Khan MA, Wang F (2009) Mercury-selenium compounds and their toxicological significance: toward a molecular understanding of the mercury-selenium antagonism. Environ Toxicol Chem 28:1567–1577

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Yang D-Y, Chen Y-W, Gunn JM, Belzile N (2008) Selenium and mercury in organisms: interactions and mechanisms. Environ Rev 16:71–92

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Cuvin-Aralar MLA, Furness RW (1991) Mercury and selenium interaction: a review. Ecotoxicol Environ Saf 21:348–364

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  26. Eagles-Smith CA, Ackerman JT, Yee J, Adelsbach TL (2009) Mercury demethylation in waterbird livers: dose–response thresholds and differences among species. Environ Toxicol Chem 28:568–577

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Peterson SA, Ralston NV, Peck DV, Sickle JV, Robertson JD, Spate VL et al (2009) How might selenium moderate the toxic effects of mercury in stream fish of the western US? Environmental science & technology 43:3919–3925

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Ralston NV, Ralston CR, Blackwell JL, Raymond LJ (2008) Dietary and tissue selenium in relation to methylmercury toxicity. Neurotoxicology 29:802–811

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Ralston NVC, Raymond LJ. 2013. Selenium status and intake influences mercury exposure risk assessments. Selenium in the environment and human health. London, UK: CRC. p 203–205.

  30. Ganther HE, Goudie C, Sunde ML, Kopecky MJ, Wanger P, Hoh S et al (1972) Selenium: relation to decreased toxicity of methylmercury added to diets containing tuna. Science,(Wash) 175:1122–1124

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  31. Ralston NV (2008) Selenium health benefit values as seafood safety criteria. EcoHealth 5:442–455

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  32. Ralston NV, Ralston CR, Raymond LJ (2016) Selenium health benefit values: updated criteria for mercury risk assessments. Biol Trace Elem Res 171:262–269

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  33. Donatuto J, Harper BL (2008) Issues in evaluating fish consumption rates for native American tribes. Risk Anal 28:1497–1506

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  34. Harper BL, Harris SG (2008) A possible approach for setting a mercury risk-based action level based on tribal fish ingestion rates. Environ Res 107:60–68

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  35. Eagles-Smith CA, Ackerman JT, Willacker JJ, Tate MT, Lutz MA, Fleck JA, et al. 2016. Spatial and temporal patterns of mercury concentrations in freshwater fish across the Western United States and Canada. Science of The Total Environment.

  36. Bevelhimer MS, Sample BE, Southworth GR, Beauchamp JJ, Peterson MJ. 1997. Estimation of whole-fish contaminant concentrations from fish fillet data. US Department of Energy. Office of Environmental Management, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennesse.

  37. Boalt E, Miller A, Dahlgren H (2014) Distribution of cadmium, mercury, and lead in different body parts of Baltic herring (Clupea harengus) and perch (Perca fluviatilis): implications for environmental status assessments. Mar Pollut Bull 78:130–136

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Goldstein RM, Brigham ME, Stauffer JC (1996) Comparison of mercury concentrations in liver, muscle, whole bodies, and composites of fish from the Red River of the north. Can J Fish Aquat Sci 53:244–252

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Depew DC, Basu N, Burgess NM, Campbell LM, Evers DC, Grasman KA et al (2012) Derivation of screening benchmarks for dietary methylmercury exposure for the common loon (Gavia immer): rationale for use in ecological risk assessment. Environ Toxicol Chem 31:2399–2407

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  40. Dellinger J, Kmiecik N, Gerstenberger S, Ngu H. 1995. Mercury contamination of fish in the Ojibwa diet: I. Walleye fillets and skin-on versus skin-off sampling. In Mercury as a Global Pollutant, pp. 69–76, Springer.

  41. Zhang X, Gandhi N, Bhavsar SP, Ho LS (2013) Effects of skin removal on contaminant levels in salmon and trout filets. Sci Total Environ 443:218–225

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  42. Karouna-Renier NK, Rao KR, Lanza JJ, Rivers SD, Wilson PA, Hodges DK et al (2008) Mercury levels and fish consumption practices in women of child-bearing age in the Florida panhandle. Environ Res 108:320–326

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  43. Knobeloch L, Anderson HA, Imm P, Peters D, Smith A (2005) Fish consumption, advisory awareness, and hair mercury levels among women of childbearing age. Environ Res 97:220–227

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  44. McKelvey W, Gwynn RC, Jeffery N, Kass D, Thorpe LE, Garg RK et al (2007) A biomonitoring study of lead, cadmium, and mercury in the blood of New York city adults. Environ Health Perspect:1435–1441

  45. National Research Council (2000) Toxicological Effects of Methylmercury. Washington, DC: National Academy Press

  46. Borum D, Schoeny R, Manibusan MK, Winchester EL. 2001. Water quality criterion for the protection of human health: methylmercury.

  47. Monsen ER (2000) Dietary reference intakes for the antioxidant nutrients: vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, and carotenoids. J Am Diet Assoc 100(6):637–640

  48. Burger J, Gochfeld M, Jeitner C, Donio M, Pittfield T (2012c) Selenium: mercury molar ratios in freshwater fish from Tennessee: individual, species, and geographical variations have implications for management. EcoHealth 9:171–182

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  49. Burger J, Gaines KF, Boring CS, Stephens WL, Snodgrass J, Gochfeld M (2001) Mercury and selenium in fish from the Savannah River: species, trophic level, and locational differences. Environ Res 87:108–118

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  50. Peterson SA, Van Sickle J, Herlihy AT, Hughes RM (2007) Mercury concentration in fish from streams and rivers throughout the western United States. Environmental Science & Technology 41:58–65

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  51. McDowell MA, Dillon CF, Osterloh J, Bolger PM, Pellizzari E, Fernando R et al (2004) Hair mercury levels in US children and women of childbearing age: reference range data from NHANES 1999–2000. Environ Health Perspect:1165–1171

  52. Reash RJ, Brown L, Merritt K (2015) Mercury and other trace elements in Ohio River fish collected near coal-fired power plants: interspecific patterns and consideration of consumption risks. Integr Environ Assess Manag 11:474–480

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  53. Winkel LH, Johnson CA, Lenz M, Grundl T, Leupin OX, Amini M et al (2011) Environmental selenium research: from microscopic processes to global understanding. Environmental science & technology 46:571–579

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Anderson HA, Hanrahan LP, Smith A, Draheim L, Kanarek M, Olsen J (2004) The role of sport-fish consumption advisories in mercury risk communication: a 1998–1999 12-state survey of women age 18–45. Environ Res 95:315–324

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  55. Fleming LE, Watkins S, Kaderman R, Levin B, Ayyar DR, Bizzio M, et al. 1995. Mercury exposure in humans through food consumption from the Everglades of Florida. In Mercury as a Global Pollutant, pp. 41–48, Springer.

  56. Karvetti RL, Knuts LR (1985) Validity of the 24-h dietary recall. J Am Diet Assoc 85:1437–1442

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  57. Burger J, Gochfeld M (2013) Selenium and mercury molar ratios in commercial fish from New Jersey and Illinois: variation within species and relevance to risk communication. Food Chem Toxicol 57:235–245

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  58. Burger J, Gochfeld M, Jeitner C, Donio M, Pittfield T (2012b) Interspecific and intraspecific variation in selenium: mercury molar ratios in saltwater fish from the Aleutians: potential protection on mercury toxicity by selenium. Sci Total Environ 431:46–56

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

    Leanne K Cusack, Anna K Harding & Molly Kile

  2. U.S. Geological Survey, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Corvallis, OR, USA

    Collin Eagles-Smith

  3. Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

    Dave Stone

Authors
  1. Leanne K Cusack
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Collin Eagles-Smith
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Anna K Harding
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Molly Kile
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Dave Stone
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Leanne K Cusack.

Ethics declarations

Funding 

This work was conducted as a part of the Western Mercury Synthesis Working Group supported by the John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis, funded by the U.S. Geological Survey. We appreciate the efforts of Kiira Siitari and Branden Johnson for database compilation and coordination, as well as the various agency representatives that contributed data to this assessment. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Cusack, L.K., Eagles-Smith, C., Harding, A.K. et al. Selenium: Mercury Molar Ratios in Freshwater Fish in the Columbia River Basin: Potential Applications for Specific Fish Consumption Advisories. Biol Trace Elem Res 178, 136–146 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-016-0907-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-016-0907-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation