title: Blood mercury level and blood pressure among US women: results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999-2000.
abstract: Exposure to mercury has been linked to elevations in blood pressure (BP), though few data are available. We examined the cross-sectional relationship between blood mercury concentration and BP in a representative US sample of 1240 women, aged 16-49 years, from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999-2000. We found no association overall between mercury and BP in multivariate models. We stratified our data by dietary fish intake (presumably reflecting the consumption of long-chain n-3 fatty acids that may reduce BP) resulting in 759 fish consumers and 481 non-fish consumers. We found that for each 1.3 microg/L (interquartile distance) increase in mercury, systolic BP significantly increased by 1.83 mm Hg (95% CI: 0.36, 3.30) among non-fish consumers. A similar pattern was seen for diastolic BP, although it was non-significant. While an adverse effect of mercury exposure at background levels on BP was not present overall, an adverse association was present among non-fish-consuming young and middle-aged women.
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA. suma@email.unc.edu
authors.forename: Suma
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vupputuri
authors.forename: Matthew P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Longnecker
authors.forename: Julie L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Daniels
authors.forename: Xuguang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Dale P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Sandler
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001794:Blood Pressure; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005399:Fishes; D005506:Food Contamination; D006801:Humans; D008628:Mercury / Q000097:blood*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D008628:Mercury