Potential risk assessment of metals in edible fish species for human consumption from the Eastern Aegean Sea

Overview

Pazi and colleagues measured metal concentrations in edible fish muscle from Aliaga Bay and Izmir Bay on the Turkish Eastern Aegean coast. The study reports wet-weight concentrations for total mercury, cadmium, lead, total chromium, copper, and zinc in four fish species. Mercury is reported as Hg; the paper does not report methylmercury speciation.

Key numbers

Table 3 reports fish-muscle metal concentrations as mg kg−1 ww:

The results section states that the maximum mercury (Hg) value was 0.83 mg kg−1 ww for P. erythrinus. It identifies the maximum cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), and Cu concentrations in M. barbatus, the highest chromium (Cr) in M. merluccius, and the highest Cu concentration as 1.6 mg kg−1 ww in Aliaga Bay.

Table 4 reports target hazard quotients (THQ). For Aliaga 2009, Hg THQs were 2.49 for D. annularis, 5.08 for P. erythrinus, 0.25 for M. merluccius, and 3.80 and 2.98 for the two M. barbatus rows. The text states that the THQ of each metal due to fish consumption was generally less than 1.0, except for Hg, and that Hg THQ values above tolerable values also occurred for M. barbatus from Izmir I and D. annularis from Izmir III.

Table 6 compares study ranges with guidelines. The Aliaga Bay 2009 ranges are Hg 0.04-0.83, Pb 0.3-0.5, and Cd 0.03-0.8; Aliaga Bay 2014 ranges are Pb 0.08-0.14 and Cd 0.003-0.006; and Izmir Bay ranges are Hg 0.05-0.3, Pb 0.02-0.06, and Cd 0.0004-0.0009.

Table 7 reports estimated dietary-intake ranges: Hg 0.3-5.7 µg kg−1 body weight week−1, Pb 0.1-3.3 µg kg−1 body weight week−1, Cd 0.01-22.8 µg kg−1 body weight month−1, Cu 0.1-1.6 µg kg−1 body weight day−1, and Zn 3.6-6.6 µg kg−1 body weight day−1.

Methods (brief)

Fish samples were collected from Aliaga Bay and Izmir Bay by bottom trawling under two Turkish monitoring projects. Muscle tissues were freeze dried, homogenized, microwave digested, and analyzed by atomic absorption spectroscopy: flame AAS for Cu and Zn, cold vapor AAS for Hg, and graphite furnace AAS for Cd, Pb, and Cr. IAEA-407 was used as the intercalibration biota sample.

Update history

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