Tuna and Mercury

ej_xo

Americans' Exposure to Mercury From Fish Won't Harm Hearts:

Researchers have been analyzing human toenails to determine the effects of eating fish contaminated with mercury, and they have found that the mercury in fish does not increase your risk of heart attack or stroke.

Yay!

The reason they looked at people’s toenails is because past studies have relied on asking people what they ate — which is unreliable. Studying their toenails gave scientists more accurate results.

"The average person should eat fish as part of a healthy diet [and not worry about ill heart effects],” said Harvard School of Public Health cardiologist Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian.

This is awesome news! Fish is a great source of protein and healthy fat. As long as you don’t overdo it — eat away!



Check it out:

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/651154.html

KaleighL

I wish i liked tuna!....I hate fish so much

taso42_DELETED

I love tuna and eat it often despite the warnings. But just to play devil's advocate.... Heart attack & stroke are one thing, but can't high mercury exposure also lead to other health issues? I think I heard it's more of a risk for pregnant women or women planning to have babies?

hpsnickers1

And I recently read to go with chunk light tuna instead of white albacore due to less mercury. If you do a little online searching you find out that certain tuna and salmon have the lowest levels.

In fact I'm sitting here with a can of Starkist Low Sodium Chunk Light Tuna. I dump the whole can in my salad.

Entire can:
120 cal (fat calories: 20)
1g fat
0g sat and trans fat
200mg sodium
300mg potassium
0g carbs
30g protein

exacerbe

Being a pescatarian, that's always good news. However, mercury poisoning is different from simply going into cardiac arrest. I always stick with canned light tuna due to the low mercury levels.

Salmon has very, very low levels of mercury and is safe to eat everyday -- unless it is farmed, which is bad for different reasons.

mgreen10

yumm...tuna melt with tomatoes and cheese on rye. I think that is what I will be having for lunch.

LovelySnugs

I love tuna and eat it often despite the warnings. But just to play devil's advocate.... Heart attack & stroke are one thing, but can't high mercury exposure also lead to other health issues? I think I heard it's more of a risk for pregnant women or women planning to have babies?

yeah. so much so that my dr told me to avoid eating more than one tuna sandwich a month while i was pregnant. it's more a paranoia issue than anything else, though. kinda like wine. and my dr told me not to have that more than once a month while i was pregnant, as well.

in fact. they give tuna to breastfeeding women on WIC here in texas, but not pregnant women. <shrug> i just eat light tuna instead of the albacore or whatever. don't really care much, myself.

bizco

I wouldn't give up tuna even if all the mercury hype was true. Gotta die of something. Just saying.

taso42_DELETED

I usually get Tongol from Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. Anyone know how that one ranks? Is it just another name for "Chunk Light"?

123456654321

I get this: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?um=1&hl=en&q=wild+tuna+no+salt&biw=698&bih=393&ie=UTF-8&cid=9739603761917100899&sa=X&ei=nU-NTbTwDMWztwf93bzFDQ&ved=0CFMQ8wIwAA#

...They don't add salt and it's supposed to be lower in mercury (I don't know how much lower.) I probably eat it twice a month *shrug*

shannonpatton

Cool! I love tuna! I eat it everyday. I was worried I might get mercury poisoning

TonyaJ83

I can't stomach putting any form of a creature in my mouth........So I haven't had to worry about this topic. Although, interesting read!

Lyadeia

What does this mean for fresh tuna? I never buy the canned stuff, I always go to a fresh market and get a fillet.

as1789

You might not have to worry about heart problems, but if you eat a lot of mercury rich fish you can go crazy, literally. It can cause central nervous system damage, kidney damage and more, and no one should eat it if they're pregnant. It can cause birth defects.
This tends to be if you eat it more than once a day every day though. Mercury is serious stuff. I've studied it a lot in my Toxicology classes.