TOXICITY OF METHYL MERCURY IN A FISH EATING POPULATION

甲基汞对食鱼人群的毒性

• 批准号: 6382339
• 负责人: THOMAS W CLARKSON
• 金额: $ 85.46万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-07-21 至 2005-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6382339
• 关键词: clinical research; developmental neurobiology; developmental nutrition; diet; environmental toxicology; fish; food chain contamination; human subject; mercury; mother /embryo /fetus nutrition; neuroprotectants; nutrition related tag

Methyl mercury is considered to be a developmental neurotoxicant. However, contrary to expected findings, a longitudinal study in the Seychelles has revealed a positive association between increasing mercury levels, measured in maternal hair prenatally and in infant hair, and enhanced child development. Given that fish consumption the Seychelles is high, and that fish intakes correlate with hair mercury levels, we hypothesize that certain micronutrients in fish may be (a) beneficial the child development and (b) protective against the neurotoxic effects of methyl mercury. We propose to test this hypothesis in a new study of 250 mother-infant pairs recruited in the Seychelles during the first trimester and followed longitudinally until the infants reach 29 months of age using the most sensitive developmental endpoints available. The four likely micronutrients, based on their levels in fish and their documented roles in brain development and prioritized in terms of biological plausibility, are the long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids principally docosahexaenoic acid, iodine, iron and the amino acid taurine. Also, selenium may play a role as a modifier of the toxic action of methyl mercury and, as such, will be included with mercury as an independent variable. Mercury in maternal and infant hair will continue to be used as our primary measure of prenatal and post natal exposures. In addition to direct measures of mercury, micronutrient status and selenium levels in biological samples from mother and infant, a diet survey including fish consumption will be made at selected pre- and postnatal stages of this study. These data will allow us to characterize metabolic interrelationship between fish intake and levels of mercury and micronutrients that should further test the plausibility of our hypothesis. This proposed study should break new scientific grounds on the interrelationship between nutrition and toxicology. Specifically, we expect that data emanating from the project to indicate that nutritional variables must be taken into account in any evaluation of the neurotoxicity of methyl mercury when fish is the principal source of human exposure to mercury.

甲基汞被认为是一种发育性神经毒性。然而，与预期的发现相反，塞舌尔的一项纵向研究表明，汞含量升高之间存在正相关，在产前和婴儿头发中以孕妇的头发和婴儿的头发和增强的儿童发育进行了积极关联。 鉴于鱼类消耗塞舌尔很高，鱼摄入量与头发汞水平相关，我们假设鱼类中某些微量营养素可能是（a）对儿童发育有益，并且（b）保护甲基汞的神经毒性作用。我们建议在一项针对塞舌尔招募的250对母亲成对的一项新研究中检验这一假设，并纵向遵循，直到使用最敏感的发育终点达到29个月大29个月。 这四种可能的微量营养素基于它们在鱼类中的水平及其在脑发育中的作用，并优先考虑生物学合理性，是长链多不饱和脂肪酸，主要是二十六烯酸，碘，铁，铁和氨基酸牛磺酸。 同样，硒可能是甲基汞毒性作用的修饰符，因此，将与汞一起作为独立变量包括在内。 孕产妇和婴儿头发中的汞将继续用作我们产前和出生后暴露的主要量度。除了直接对母亲和婴儿的生物样品中的微量营养素状态和硒水平的措施，还将在本研究的选定前和产后阶段进行包括鱼类食用在内的饮食调查。 这些数据将使我们能够表征鱼类摄入和汞和微量营养素水平之间的代谢相互关系，这些相互关系应进一步检验我们的假设的合理性。这项拟议的研究应打破有关营养与毒理学之间相互关系的新科学理由。具体而言，我们期望从项目中发出的数据表明，当鱼类是人类暴露于汞的主要来源时，必须考虑任何评估甲基汞的神经毒性的营养变量。