Selenium:Mercury Ratio in Fish

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circular
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Selenium:Mercury Ratio in Fish

Post by circular »

I’ve become less worried about eating a wider variety of fish since reading about the selenium:mercury ratio, but I wonder what others think. See http://net-effects.und.edu/pdfs/Selenium-Mercury.pdf

There was also a paper showing that mercury, even in e4s, didn’t counteract the benefits of fish consumption. I need to take a closer look at that and can’t get my hands on it just now.
ApoE 3/4 > Thanks in advance for any responses made to my posts.
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SusanJ
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Re: Selenium:Mercury Ratio in Fish

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circular wrote:I’ve become less worried about eating a wider variety of fish since reading about the selenium:mercury ratio, but I wonder what others think.
Interesting. Found a couple of references with a quick search. Seems like it has some science to back it up.

Mercury Toxicity and the Mitigating Role of Selenium - https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 008-0204-y
Mercury: Selenium interactions and health implications - https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... plications
circular
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Re: Selenium:Mercury Ratio in Fish

Post by circular »

SusanJ wrote:
circular wrote:I’ve become less worried about eating a wider variety of fish since reading about the selenium:mercury ratio, but I wonder what others think.
Interesting. Found a couple of references with a quick search. Seems like it has some science to back it up.

Mercury Toxicity and the Mitigating Role of Selenium - https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 008-0204-y
Mercury: Selenium interactions and health implications - https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... plications
Thanks, and here are some more links:

Association of Seafood Consumption, Brain Mercury Level, and APOE ε4 Status With Brain Neuropathology in Older Adults (286 autopsied brains, food frequency questionaire, old, largely non-Hispanic white cohort)
Conclusions
In cross-sectional analyses, moderate seafood consumption was correlated with lesser burden of brain Alzheimer disease neuropathology in APOE ε4 carriers. Although seafood consumption was correlated with higher brain levels of mercury, these levels were not correlated with brain neuropathology
Rethinking mercury: the role of selenium in the pathophysiology of mercury toxicity (review of 117 culled references)
Selenium supplementation has been shown to restore selenoprotein function and reduce the toxicity of mercury, with several significant limitations including: the form of mercury (methylmercury toxicity is less responsive to amelioration) and mercury dose. [The study above suggests the possibility that methylmercury in the brain may be responsive enough given adequate selenium; ie, a robust selenium:mercury ratio?]

Conclusions: The interaction with selenium is a central feature in mercury toxicity. This interaction is complex depending on a number of features such as the form of mercury, the form of selenium, the organ and dose. The previously suggested “protective effect” of selenium against mercury toxicity may in fact be backwards. The effect of mercury is to produce a selenium deficiency state and a direct inhibition of selenium’s role in controlling the intracellular redox environment in organisms. Selenium supplementation, with limitations, may have a beneficial role in restoring adequate selenium status from the deficiency state and mitigating the toxicity of mercury.
Selenium modifies associations between multiple metals and neurologic symptoms in Gulf states residents (blood cadmium, lead, total mercury, manganese, and selenium in 1007 Gulf state residents)
Blood selenium modified associations between cadmium, lead, and mercury and neurologic symptoms …

Although blood mercury was not associated with neurologic symptoms overall, we observed a suggestive inverse interaction between higher levels of selenium and the highest quartile of mercury…

Among those with lower selenium, positive associations for all outcomes were driven by cadmium and lead. In the higher selenium group, mercury drove inverse associations… [I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around that last statement.] …

In both single chemical and mixture analyses, we found that increasing levels of blood cadmium and lead were associated with a higher prevalence of CNS and PNS symptoms, respectively. While manganese and selenium were not consistently independently associated with outcomes, selenium modified associations between cadmium, lead, and [total] mercury with neurologic endpoints. These findings indicate that general population levels of metals may be related to subclinical neurotoxicity and future studies should consider effect heterogeneity by concomitant exposures such as selenium.
ApoE 3/4 > Thanks in advance for any responses made to my posts.
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Re: Selenium:Mercury Ratio in Fish

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Here is a graph on the amount of mercury and selenium in fish.
mercury selenium in fish.jpg


If you are going to supplement to remove mercury, the form of selenium you need is L-selenomethionine. My husband who is a chemist has an evidence based write up. "It has been demonstrated that targeted detox of humans being chronically exposed to mercury is possible by taking 100mcg of selenomethionine daily for twelve weeks. The group being supplemented with selenomethionine had significantly enhanced urinary excretion of mercury5. In those with mercury induced selenium deficiency it may take on average 2 - 4 weeks to first restore the body’s selenium reserves before enhanced mercury excretion is observed (Figure 1)Here is a link." 5) Li, Y-F, et al.; Organic selenium supplementation increases mercury excretion and decreases oxidative damage in long-term mercury exposed residents from Wanshan, China; Environ. Sci. Technol.; 46:11313-18 (2012) http://prevent-alzheimers-autism-stroke ... ethod.html
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Re: Selenium:Mercury Ratio in Fish

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I have removed fish from my diet, I was eating only 150gr of high quality fish everyday (wild salmon from Alaska, etc) and some day I decided to do a mercury blood test just to check it because I was having some strange issues (that later I found was because of mercury) and because I was eating fish and the issues it could have with mercury.
After that blood test my relationship with fish changed a lot, I've got mercury 3 times the maximum level in my lab test, I removed fish from diet and to normalize levels it took me more than 6 months.
That theory about selenium/mercury relationship in fish is just theory, the reality is fish is not good for your health, besides mercury it has microplastics, so you could eat it once in a while because you like it and you know that is harmful to your health.
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Re: Selenium:Mercury Ratio in Fish

Post by nerdymel23 »

citytrader wrote:I have removed fish from my diet, I was eating only 150gr of high quality fish everyday (wild salmon from Alaska, etc) and some day I decided to do a mercury blood test just to check it because I was having some strange issues (that later I found was because of mercury) and because I was eating fish and the issues it could have with mercury.
After that blood test my relationship with fish changed a lot, I've got mercury 3 times the maximum level in my lab test, I removed fish from diet and to normalize levels it took me more than 6 months.
That theory about selenium/mercury relationship in fish is just theory, the reality is fish is not good for your health, besides mercury it has microplastics, so you could eat it once in a while because you like it and you know that is harmful to your health.
Hi citytrader,

Thank you for sharing your insights. I'm glad you were proactive in testing for mercury. Many people aren't as aware, and may not make a connection to fish. The top consideration is usually related to dental work. Were you noticing particular symptoms that let you to this conclusion?

Have you had a chance to explore the forum and the comprehensive Wiki yet? We hope you’ll continue to share. Everyone has experiences that will be useful to the members.

Happy Friday!

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Re: Selenium:Mercury Ratio in Fish

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nerdymel23 wrote: Hi citytrader,

Thank you for sharing your insights. I'm glad you were proactive in testing for mercury. Many people aren't as aware, and may not make a connection to fish. The top consideration is usually related to dental work. Were you noticing particular symptoms that let you to this conclusion?

Melissa
Regarding dental work, my teeth are mostly fine, I have two repairs that were did with a ceramic compound, so my teeths are mercury free :), when I stopped eating fish completely (nothing coming from the sea including mollusks) I started to normalize my mercury levels, fish were the cause of my very high mercury levels.
Is not about a connection to fish, is about eating food that is not poison like most of the fish, unfortunately the sea in most parts of the world is contaminated and this is a signal to be aware to start doing something, maybe someone can not take so seriously when we talk about mercury and fish because someone can think that this is an exaggeration, but the current situation is much worse than we can imagine.
My suggestion is to eat the less fish as possible or if you eat fish, do a mercury blood test once a year, in my case I don't eat fish anymore, maybe once in a while a mollusk for pleasure but after that I take a pill of selenium.
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Re: Selenium:Mercury Ratio in Fish

Post by circular »

citytrader wrote:I have removed fish from my diet, I was eating only 150gr of high quality fish everyday (wild salmon from Alaska, etc) and some day I decided to do a mercury blood test just to check it because I was having some strange issues (that later I found was because of mercury) and because I was eating fish and the issues it could have with mercury.
After that blood test my relationship with fish changed a lot, I've got mercury 3 times the maximum level in my lab test, I removed fish from diet and to normalize levels it took me more than 6 months.
That theory about selenium/mercury relationship in fish is just theory, the reality is fish is not good for your health, besides mercury it has microplastics, so you could eat it once in a while because you like it and you know that is harmful to your health.
Thanks for this reminder citytrader! I had forgotten while thinking about the selenium:mercury ratio that, indeed, in the past I also tested high for mercury. I didn't eliminate fish but I cut it back from often twice a day of low mercury fish to about once a day and my mercury level came back in the middle of the labs normal range. I realize that many believe that any mercury on a blood test is too much, but given the study I linked to above suggesting that ApoE4s benefit from fish even with the mercury, I'm still not convinced we can predict an adverse outcome from eating fish with mercury. The equation might not be that simple?

That said, you do make me curious what my blood mercury level is today.
ApoE 3/4 > Thanks in advance for any responses made to my posts.
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Re: Selenium:Mercury Ratio in Fish

Post by citytrader »

circular wrote: I realize that many believe that any mercury on a blood test is too much, but given the study I linked to above suggesting that ApoE4s benefit from fish even with the mercury.
To avoid "believes" is better to do blood tests, at the time I discovered this, the maximum level for my lab was 10.9 ug/L and my result was 27ug/L

I don't believe there is a benefit for any people to eat fish as I didn't see any benefit of getting Omega-3 that I saw it demonstrated in a paper, what I saw is the risk for atrial fibrillation consuming O3 supplements...
https://www.escardio.org/The-ESC/Press- ... m-disorder
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