Mercury levels in human population from a mining district in Western Colombia

Simple and rapid method for the determination of mercury in human hair by cold vapour generation atomic fluorescence spectrometry

“…In addition, gender did not influence this parameter, as has also been observed for young Spanish subjects [86]. Other authors [51] have also observed comparable high Hg concentrations in the hair of the two sexes of the residents of a mining district in Colombia (the geometric mean in the hair of males 15.98 mg kg −1 , whereas those of females was 8.55 mg kg −1 ). No differences in Hg levels with age of individuals from a contaminated area in coastal Eastern Sicily in Italy [14], Lower Silesia, south-west Poland [87], and Upper Maroni, French Guiana [88] were observed.…”

“…The average Hg level (0.21 ± 0.24 mg kg −1 ) was found comparable only with that of a Swedish population (0.26 ± 0.14 mg kg −1 ) obtained by Rodushkin and Axelsson [78] and lower than the mean levels reported in other studies: half that of Poland (0.50 ± 0.39 mg kg −1 ) measured by Chojnacka et al [62], one-third of that from Italy (0.66 ± 0.59 mg kg −1 ) measured by Domanico et al [34], one-tenth of that from Iran for non-fishing families (2.27 ± 2.10 mg kg −1 ) obtained by Okati and Esmaili-sari [27], and one-twenty-fifth that from Spain (5.38 mg kg −1 ) measured by Raposo et al [36]. These differences can be attributed to environmental and occupational exposures, hair colour, ethnic and geographical origin, and seafood consumption [26,51,87,89,90]. Therefore, it is very important to establish reference ranges for each country and to obtain information on eating habits and lifestyle.…”

“…Many studies have shown that gender is unlikely to play a role in determining Hg accumulation [6,11,82], but Hg concentrations in hair samples have been observed to vary with age [51,[83][84][85]. In this study, the participants were divided into two groups based on their age and on their gender: 18-29 years old (N = 19, 13 males and 6 females) and 30-50 years old (N = 18, 5 males and 13 females).…”

“…On the other hand, the residual acidity can severely suppress the analytical signal [20,48,49]. Recently, direct Hg analysis by means of automated commercial instruments, such as the Advanced Mercury Analyser (AMA), Trace Mercury Analyser (TMA), or Direct Mercury Analyser (DMA) has become increasingly popular, especially given their advantages of not requiring sample pre-treatment or extraction and the possibility of analysing both liquid and solid matrices and carrying out economic analysis [50][51][52][53][54][55][56].…”

Limited biomass recovery from gold mining in Amazonian forests

“…These mining activities invariably lead to widespread environmental damage and deforestation, resulting in substantial soil erosion and contamination, increased forest fragmentation and mercury pollution of rivers and streams (Castilhos et al., 2015; Dedieu, Allard, Vigouroux, Brosse, & Céréghino, 2014; Sonter et al., 2017; Veiga, Maxson, & Hylander, 2006). Mercury bioaccumulates along the aquatic food web and the consumption of contaminated fish, an integral part of human diet, can result in fatal damage to humans' central nervous system in affected regions (Gutiérrez‐Mosquera et al., 2018). Further ecological impacts may arise from hunting and/or land clearance to support mining settlements (Sonter, Ali, & Watson, 2018).…”