News Coverage
Older men with high mercury levels are at risk
Published February 1, 2005
Middle-aged men should avoid eating fish high in mercury because it could put them at greater risk for heart attacks and other heart ailments, a Finnish researcher told U.S. scientists and public health advocates Tuesday.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration currently advise pregnant women and children to avoid fish high in mercury because the contaminant can interfere with brain development in the fetus and young children, leading to a loss of intelligence and learning difficulties.
Neither agency offers any specific advice on eating mercury-contaminated fish to men. However, several studies have found that middle-aged men with higher levels of mercury in their bodies had significantly higher rates of heart attacks and heart disease than men with lower levels.
The accumulating evidence that eating fish high in mercury can increase a man's risk for heart attacks and other heart ailments, while "still inconclusive," is strong enough to warrant urging middle-aged men to avoid eating high-mercury fish, said Jyrki Virtanen with the Research Institute of Public Health at the University of Kuopio in Finland.
"High consumption of fish increases the mercury (level) in the body, especially if the fish are caught from waters known to be high in mercury," Virtanen said. "Larger, older, predatory fish are the worst kind and should be avoided."
Virtanen is the lead author of a study published this month in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, a journal of the American Heart Association. The study found a 50 percent to 70 percent greater risk of heart attacks, heart disease and cardiovascular disease in men ages 42 to 60 who had elevated levels of mercury in their bodies.
The study, which is following the health of 2,682 Finnish men, found that a third of study participants who tested highest for mercury also reported eating an average of twice as much fish as the rest of the men in the study.
The men least likely to experience heart problems were those who had both low levels of mercury and high levels of fatty acids found in fish that are known to reduce the risk of heart disease, Virtanen said.
However, the health benefits of fatty acids, also known as Omega 3s, appeared to be more than offset by the disadvantages of high levels of mercury in the men who tested highest for mercury, Virtanen said.
"In terms of the type of evidence we often use to evaluate health risks from toxics, this is a pretty good basis for concluding a likelihood of a relationship between mercury and cardiovascular disease," said Alan Stern, a toxicologist who was a member of a landmark National Academy of Sciences committee that evaluated the health risks of mercury in 2000.
EPA scientists who attended Virtanen's presentation said the agency is studying the new research.
The fish that tend to be the highest in mercury are large predators at the top of the food chain, such as shark, swordfish, pike, perch and some species of tuna.