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: Ni 1.88 ± 0.07 µg/g, Zn 27.16 ± 8.11 µg/g, Cu 11.55 ± 4.12 µg/g, Pb 14 ± 0.06 µg/g, and 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.
• The source states that risk indices were less than one for the studied metals and fish species, but this page does not convert those statements into HMTc threshold claims.

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.

Implications

Certification (HMTc): This is primary fish occurrence evidence from Iran, but it is C-tier for pooling because the paper contains severe unit and scale inconsistencies between the abstract, Table 3, and Figure 2.

Courses: The paper is a good audit example for seafood occurrence data: a peer-reviewed article can still have unit labels that make direct pooling unsafe until checked against the rendered PDF and, ideally, the authors’ underlying data.

App: The source can provide Persian Gulf fish context for Ni, Zn, Cu, Pb, and Cd, with a prominent source-quality warning.

Wiki pages this source may touch

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

Verification notes

• PDF text was extracted with pdftotext -layout to /tmp/hmi_row_1546.txt; Table 3 and Figure 2 were also checked against rendered PDF pages because the units conflict.
• Identity checks before creation: DOI 10.1007/s12011-023-03946-z, raw handle MFK_health-risk-assessment-of-heavy-metals-in-marine, raw SHA-256 c4c8744f2490c5f09df3f72fcaa771f0aafb55e5de1a627e9703b80eb62848fa, and cite key torabi2024-persian-gulf-marine-fish-metals were searched in wiki/sources/ and evidence files; no existing source page was found.
• Units are preserved exactly as printed: aggregate means are in µg/g wet weight; Table 3 is described with the paper’s milligrams per gram of wet weight caption; Figure 2 is noted as µg metal/g dw.
• Speciation: the paper measured total elemental Ni, Zn, Cu, Pb, and Cd in fish muscle. It did not measure Hg, MeHg, arsenic, or metal speciation.
• Brand firewall is not relevant; samples are wild fish species and ports, not brands.
• Source-quality note: no averaging, unit conversion, or table correction was performed because the source itself is internally inconsistent.

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.