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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advise women who may become pregnant, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and young children to avoid some types of fish and eat fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury.

What Are the Health Risks Associated With Consuming Mercury-Contaminated Fish?

Mercury targets the nervous system and kidneys. Developing fetuses, infants and young children are at the highest risk from mercury exposure, since their brains and nervous systems are still forming. Fetuses can absorb mercury directly across the placenta, and nursing infants can get it from their mother's breast milk. This is why it is so important for women of childbearing age to minimize their consumption of fish with high mercury levels. It can take 12-18 months for women in their childbearing years to significantly rid their body burden of methylmercury.

Children exposed to mercury before birth may exhibit problems with mental development and coordination, including how they think, learn and problem-solve later in life. These neurological symptoms may appear similar to cerebral palsy. Developmental and neurological damage can be irreversible for fetuses and young children, but as children get older, the risk associated with mercury exposure decreases.

Mercury exposure can also harm adults. Symptoms can include numbness, burning or tingling of the extremities (lips, fingers, toes); fatigue; weakness; irritability; shyness; loss of memory and coordination; tremors; and changes in hearing and blurred vision. Extremely high mercury levels can permanently damage an adult's brain and kidneys, or even lead to circulatory failure.

In a Finnish study published in the American Heart Association journal, it was revealed that eating fish high in mercury puts middle-aged men at a greater risk for coronary heart disease and may offset the protective effects of omega-3 fatty acids in some seafood. The study shows that men with the highest levels of mercury in their hair had a 60 percent increased risk of an acute coronary event and a nearly 70 percent increased risk of cardiovascular death compared with men with lower mercury levels. Men with the highest levels of mercury in their hair, which is a standard method of measuring mercury in the body, consumed more than two times the amount of fish as those with the lowest levels.

The US Environmental Protection Agency provides website with general information on fish advisories, public information materials, technical guidance documents, and related links.

Why eat fish and which to choose?

Most fish contain some of the long chain omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Recent evidence has suggested that fish consumption and the associated intake of EPA and DHA from fish can help maintain