2024 Author: Jasmine Walkman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 08:29
Climate change they already have many negative effects on people's lives and this trend will deepen in the future. One of them is increasing levels of toxic mercury in marine fish - cod and tuna. Excessive fishing deepens the trend.
As fish is one of the most useful and therefore preferred foods, it can lead to neurological disorders in babies and children, whose mothers have regularly included fish specialties in their menu during pregnancy.
Methylmercury is an organic form of the known chemical element in these two species of fish, which has increased between 20 and 30 percent in the last 30 years. Toxic mercury is known not to have direct access to the central nervous system.
To reach it, it is necessary to turn it into methylmercury, which is very easily absorbed by the body. It passes through the blood and brain cells into the central nervous system. It also penetrates the placenta and damages the fetus.
Processing is done by bacterial genes, but what they are and why they make mercury deadly is still a scientific mystery. The measurements were made in the catch of fish in the Gulf of Maine in the Atlantic.
The accumulation of methylmercury in the body through the consumption of fish, which ingests it from the ocean and transmits it to humans, is especially dangerous for pregnant women in the third trimester, that is, in more advanced pregnancies. Then the fetal brain develops the fastest. It is also dangerous for small children.
Expectant mothers have long been advised not to eat swordfish and shark meat because of their high mercury levels. However, cod is recommended as an opportunity to provide the body with nutrients and proteins that support the development of the young organism.
The results of the research are not aimed at discouraging people from eating fish because it is a light, useful and nutritious food, but at drawing public attention to the problem of climate change. New climatic realities have a direct impact on food and through it on our health.
Global warming is raising the temperature of water in the oceans and seas and the energy needs of small fish are increasing. To satisfy it, they ingest more food, and with it methylmercury. Big fish feed on them and so the dangerous compound reaches us.
Another prerequisite is the intensified fishing of small marine fish, which are food for cod. Then it is directed to larger prey, as well as to lobsters, in which the methylmercury is more.
It is known that fish consumption has doubled in the last 50 years, which means that the health risk has increased significantly.
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