Wang et al. 2021 - Houttuynia Mercury in Southwest China
Wang et al. measured total mercury and methylmercury in edible Houttuynia cordata tissues from a mercury-mining area and a non-mining comparison area in Guizhou, China. The source is direct occurrence evidence for a consumed leafy/herbal vegetable, not for cereal bars despite the wishlist filename.
Key numbers
All concentration values below are dry-weight unless noted.
| Tissue/area | THg mean +/- SD (ug/kg) | MeHg mean +/- SD (ug/kg) |
|---|---|---|
| Underground parts, Danzhai mercury-mining area | 127 +/- 61 | 1.59 +/- 1.01 |
| Underground parts, Zhijin comparison area | 33 +/- 20 | 0.45 +/- 0.11 |
| Aboveground parts, Danzhai mercury-mining area | 246 +/- 116 | 0.62 +/- 0.36 |
| Aboveground parts, Zhijin comparison area | 36 +/- 7 | 0.30 +/- 0.10 |
The highest reported tissue values were 541 ug/kg THg and 1.39 ug/kg MeHg in underground parts and 272 ug/kg THg and 3.49 ug/kg MeHg in aboveground parts. All samples from the Danzhai mining area exceeded the Chinese vegetable guidance value of 10 ug/kg fresh weight for THg after the study’s basis comparison.
Methods (brief)
Plant tissues were separated into aboveground and underground parts, dried, and analyzed for total mercury by direct mercury analysis. Methylmercury was measured after extraction and derivatization with chromatographic separation and cold-vapor atomic fluorescence detection. The study used plant and soil certified reference materials and reported recoveries for THg and MeHg.
Implications
This source supports mercury occurrence context for leafy/herbal vegetables grown near mercury mining areas. It should remain geography- and contamination-source specific and should not be used as a general-market vegetable baseline. It also illustrates that edible tissue choice changes total mercury and methylmercury exposure.
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Verification notes
- Batch 2 auto-fetched ingest, 2026-05-25. The wishlist row targeted cereal-bar methylmercury, but the actual paper is an edible Houttuynia vegetable mercury paper.
- Speciation: total mercury and methylmercury are separately measured; do not substitute total mercury for methylmercury.
- Market/geography: mining-area samples are contamination-hotspot evidence, not routine retail-market evidence.
Page history
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