title: Mercury, selenium and fish oils in marine food webs and implications for human health.
abstract: Humans who eat fish are exposed to mixtures of healthful nutrients and harmful contaminants that are influenced by environmental and ecological factors. Marine fisheries are composed of a multitude of species with varying life histories, and harvested in oceans, coastal waters and estuaries where environmental and ecological conditions determine fish exposure to both nutrients and contaminants. Many of these nutrients and contaminants are thought to influence similar health outcomes (i.e., neurological, cardiovascular, immunological systems). Therefore, our understanding of the risks and benefits of consuming seafood require balanced assessments of contaminants and nutrients found in fish and shellfish. In this paper, we review some of the reported benefits of fish consumption with a focus on the potential hazards of mercury exposure, and compare the environmental variability of fish oils, selenium and mercury in fish. A major scientific gap identified is that fish tissue concentrations are rarely measured for both contaminants and nutrients across a range of species and geographic regions. Interpreting the implications of seafood for human health will require a better understanding of these multiple exposures, particularly as environmental conditions in the oceans change.
authors.affiliation: Department of Preventive Medicine , University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine , Los Angeles , CA , USA.
authors.forename: Matthew O
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Gribble
authors.affiliation: School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences , Stony Brook University , Stony Brook , NY , USA.
authors.forename: Roxanne
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Karimi
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Health Sciences , University at Albany School of Public Health, State University of New York , Rensselaer , NY , USA.
authors.forename: Beth J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Feingold
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology , Microbiology and Immunology , University of South Carolina School of Medicine , Columbia , SC , USA.
authors.forename: Jennifer F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Nyland
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterinary Medicine , College of Natural Science and Mathematics , University of Alaska Fairbanks , Fairbanks , AK , USA.
authors.forename: Todd M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: O'Hara
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biophysics of Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Akademgorodok, Krasnoyarsk, Russia; Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russia.
authors.forename: Michail I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Gladyshev
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences - Dartmouth College , Hanover , NH , USA.
authors.forename: Celia Y
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Chen
keywords: OHH; Oceans and human health; docosahexaenoic acid; ecotoxicology; eicosapentaenoic acid; fish oils; mercury; n−3 fatty acids; public health; selenium
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