Risk Assessment and Determination of Arsenic and Heavy Metals in Fishery Products in Korea

Overview

Kim, Jeon, and Shin measured lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), arsenic, total mercury, and methylmercury in 1186 Korean fishery-product samples. The source covers seven broad categories: sea algae, freshwater fish, marine fish, crustaceans, mollusks, tunicates, and echinoderms. Arsenic is reported as total/unspecified As in the occurrence table, while the risk section assumes inorganic arsenic for carcinogenic-risk modeling.

Key numbers

Samples were collected from January to November 2021 in six Korean regions. Table 1 reports category counts: sea algae n = 105, freshwater fish n = 87, marine fish n = 559, crustaceans n = 65, mollusks n = 320, tunicates n = 30, and echinoderms n = 20.

Table 4 reports mean, max, and min concentrations as mg/kg; standard deviations are shown in parentheses:

The discussion states that the maximum mercury (Hg) content in marine fish was 2.245 mg/kg, exceeding the EU standard of 1.0 mg/kg for deep seawater and predatory fish, while the maximum Me-Hg content was 0.084 mg/kg by the standards comparison sentence and 0.322 mg/kg in Table 4. Because Table 4 is the source’s occurrence table, this page retains the Table 4 Me-Hg maximum of 0.322 mg/kg for marine fish and notes the conflicting narrative value here.

Table 2 reports LOD/LOQ values in mackerel matrix as mg/kg: Pb 0.001/0.004, Cd 0.001/0.004, arsenic (As) 0.002/0.005, Hg 0.001/0.003, and Me-Hg 0.003/0.010.

Table 5 reports estimated exposure. The highest EDI values for Pb, Cd, and As were in crustaceans: Pb 5.84 x 10−4 µg/kg/day, Cd 2.56 x 10−3 µg/kg/day, and As 4.23 x 10−2 µg/kg/day. Marine fish had the highest Hg and Me-Hg exposures: Hg EDI 1.57 x 10−3 µg/kg/day and Me-Hg EDI 2.68 x 10−4 µg/kg/day.

Table 6 reports HI values below 1 for all categories, ranging from 1.36 x 10−3 in freshwater fish to 1.43 x 10−1 in crustaceans. Table 7 reports Pb carcinogenic-risk values below 1 x 10−6 for all fishery-product categories and As carcinogenic-risk values from 4.22 x 10−7 in freshwater fish to 6.34 x 10−5 in crustaceans, using the source’s protective assumption that As was inorganic As.

Methods (brief)

Fishery products were purchased from grocery stores and markets in six Korean regions, non-edible parts were removed, and samples were homogenized and stored at −18 °C. Pb, Cd, and As were analyzed by ICP-MS after microwave digestion; Hg and Me-Hg were measured by DMA-80 evo direct mercury analysis. Me-Hg was analyzed only in samples where Hg was detected. The method validation reported R2 > 0.999, LODs 1.0-3.2 µg/kg, LOQs 3.1-9.6 µg/kg, accuracy 88.14-113.80%, and precision 0.07-6.02%.

Implications

This source contributes broad Korean market fishery-product occurrence data for total As, Pb, Cd, total mercury (tHg), and methylmercury (MeHg). It is directly useful for marine fish, freshwater fish, shellfish, and seaweed/sea-algae context, but tunicates and echinoderms lack specific destination slugs in the closed taxonomy. Downstream routing should keep Table 4 total Hg and Me-Hg separate and should not treat the risk section’s inorganic-As assumption as measured inorganic arsenic (iAs) occurrence.

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.