Mercury In Fish

Just read a great piece on this topic in today's Washington Post. Here is summary of the main points that I took from it:

1. According to an analysis by a scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency, women living in coastal areas have twice as much mercury in their blood as women who live inland.

2. French women living along the coast eat three times more fish than French women living inland.

3. American women living along the Atlantic coast had much higher blood levels (7.7 parts per billion) of mercury than American women living along the Pacific (4.7 parts per billion) and Gulf (3.2 parts per billion) coasts.

4. Wealthier women are more likely to have higher blood mercury levels than poor women. "Women earning less than $20,000 annually had an average level of 2.8 parts per billion, while women earning more than $20,000 had 3.9 parts per billion."

There's no question that with the amount of mercury in our environment today due to industrial pollution, we have to be extremely careful in choosing which fish we eat and how often we eat them.

For detailed guidelines on this topic, view: Choosing Healthy Fish for Nourishment.