Overview
This 2015 Korean cohort study measured total mercury in hair and blood of 252 healthy weaning-age infants (6–22 months) in Seoul, finding geometric mean hair Hg of 0.22 µg/g and blood Hg of 0.94 µg/L. Fish intake was a key predictor of mercury levels.
Key numbers
Hair mercury (n=252, µg/g): Geometric mean 0.22 (95% CI 0.20–0.24); median 0.20; range 0.1–1.3; IQR 0.10–0.30. Five infants had hair Hg >1.0 µg/g. Hair-to-blood ratio: median 202.7, IQR 135.1–326.1.
Blood mercury (n=109, µg/L): Geometric mean 0.94 (95% CI 0.89–0.99); median 0.82; range 0.37–4.15; IQR 0.63–1.28.
Methods
Hair Hg: AAS or CVAAS (not specified in excerpt). Blood Hg: CVAAS or ICP-MS. 2 cohorts (2009/2010, 2013/2014). Seoul urban infants. Fish intake associated with higher Hg biomarkers.
Implications
Health: Korean infants in this age range have blood Hg median 0.82 µg/L; this is below the US EPA reference level for methylmercury (5.8 µg/L blood, or 1 ppm in hair), but 5 infants had hair Hg >1.0 µg/g (approaching the 1 ppm hair reference). Fish introduction during weaning drives the upper tail.
App: Fish-containing weaning foods are the primary driver of MeHg/tHg exposure in infants; flag fish-containing baby foods for Hg.
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Update history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.
| Commit | Date | Change | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| a8052bb | 2026-08-09 | major | 6 sections added; narrative text revised |