Health Risk Assessment of Heavy Metals in Marine Fish Caught from the Northwest Persian Gulf

Overview

Torabi and colleagues measured nickel, zinc, copper, lead, and cadmium in muscle tissue from 60 marine fish caught along the northwest Persian Gulf. The abstract and Discussion report aggregate mean concentrations in µg/g wet weight, while Table 3 prints much larger species-level values and labels them as milligrams per gram of wet weight. Because that table/unit conflict is substantial, this page preserves the source text without reconciling the values.

Key numbers

• Sample frame: 20 specimens each of Psettodes erumei, Sphyraena jello, and Sillago sihama, collected in spring 2022 from six main ports in Bushehr province.
• Abstract/Discussion aggregate means: nickel (Ni) 1.88 ± 0.07 µg/g, Zn 27.16 ± 8.11 µg/g, Cu 11.55 ± 4.12 µg/g, lead (Pb) 14 ± 0.06 µg/g, and cadmium (Cd) 0.19 ± 0.03 µg/g wet weight.
• Table 3 species values are printed under the caption “based on milligrams per gram of wet weight”: P. erumei Cd 18.06 ± 0.0, Pb 84.48 ± 0.0, Cu 60.34 ± 2.1, Zn 32.69 ± 2.3, and Ni 80.3 ± 0.0.
• Table 3 also prints S. jello Cd 4.02 ± 0.0, Pb 2.01 ± 0.0, Cu 90.04 ± 0.0, Zn 10.08 ± 6.10, and Ni 54.58 ± 1.0.
• Table 3 prints S. sihama Cd 5.02 ± 0.0, Pb 9.01 ± 0.0, Cu 53.12 ± 0.0, Zn 60.44 ± 30.8, and Ni 30.14 ± 0.0.
• Figure 2 is captioned “Mean concentrations (µg metal/g dw) of heavy metals in the sampling sites”, introducing a second basis/unit label that does not match either the abstract’s wet-weight means or Table 3’s “milligrams per gram” caption.

Methods (brief)

Fish muscle tissue was dissected after total length and weight measurements. The Methods describe 3 g fish muscle tissue wet weight digested with nitric acid/perchloric acid, filtered through Whatman filter paper, and analyzed for metals by ICP-OES. The paper estimates daily and weekly intakes and target hazard quotients for adults and children.

Related evidence

• Seafood
• Fish
• Seafood
• Fresh Fish
• Fish — marine, predatory (tuna, swordfish, shark, king mackerel)
• Fish — marine, non-predatory (sardines, anchovies, salmon, cod)

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.