Mercury Levels in the Hair Of Indigenous Population of the Coastal Area of the Vologda Region, Russia

Abstract

Mercury or hydrargyrum (Hg) is an important neurotoxin for living organisms. Small doses of mercury can cause various disorders of the nervous system. The US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) has established recommended levels of mercury in hair (<1 mg / kg). The main source of mercury for human body is fish. In the period from 2017 to 2018, 231 residents of the coastal region of North-West Russia were examined for the determination of mercury in their hair. The average mercury content in the hair was 1.139 mg / kg. No difference in the level of mercury between men (mean = 1.222 mg / kg) and women (mean = 1.099 mg / kg) was found. The smallest amount of mercury is noted in the hair of people under 27 years old (0.579 mg / kg). A correlation was established between the amount of mercury in the hair and the amount of fish consumption. The concentration of mercury in the hair of people who consume fish several times a week (2.001 mg / kg) is 2 times higher than in the hair of people who consume fish less than 1 time per month is (1.070 mg / kg).

Mercury content in the hair of residents of Babushkinsky district, Vologda region, Russia

“…The average content of mercury in the hair of residents of the Babushkinsky district is 0.398=0.053 mg/kg, varies from 0.001 to 2.830 mg/kg (Table 1). The values of mercury in the population of Babushkinsky district are significantly lower than the values of the coastal territories of Kirillovsky district (1.139 mg/kg), Brazil (16.400 mg/kg), and the gold mining region Kadoma/Zimbabwe -1.47 mg/kg [9,11,12]. The results of the current study are more than twice as high as the levels of mercury in the hair of residents of the industrial city of the Vologda region Cherepovets (0.194 mg/kg), central Poland (0.174 mg/kg), and Germany (0.109 mg/kg) [10,14].…”

“…The average mercury value for males of the Babushkinsky district is 0.540 ± 0.147 mg/kg, while for females, it is 0.344 ± 0.041 mg/kg. No differences in mercury content between men and women were found in residents of the coastal Kirillovsky district, Russia (males -0.94 mg/kg, females -0.72 mg/kg) and residents of the Russian city of Cherepovets (males -0.174 mg/kg, females -0.201 mg/kg) [9,10]. Also, gender differences were not found in the study on the territory of Upper Maroni, French Guiana (males -9.4 mg/kg, females -9.9 mg/kg) [16].…”

“…The accumulation of mercury in biotic and abiotic components of biosystems has been studied in the Vologda region for the last decades [6][7][8]. On the territory of the Vologda region, the content of mercury in hair was studied only in one coastal Kirillovsky district and the industrial city of Cherepovets [9,10].…”

Factors affecting the mercury concentration in the hair of young residents of the Vologda region, Russia

“…The results are comparable with published data (median 0.164 mg/ kg) from a study of a group of students (the chemistry department of the Wroclaw University of Technology) aged 21-22 living in an urban area of Poland (Chojnacka et al, 2010). At the same time, the established levels of mercury concentrations in the hair of students at ChSU is lower about half than those recorded in residents of the Kirillovsky district of the region under the age of 27 years (median 0.275 mg/kg) (Rumiantseva et al, 2018). The difference in the mercury content in the hair may be due to the amount of fish in the diet and its species composition.…”

“…In 2016, the consumption of fish and fish products per household member in the region amounted to 22.4 kg/year, which exceeded the indicators obtained in 2015 (20.9 kg/year) ([dataset] Household food consumption in 2017, 2018 ). Despite the increase in fish consumption, information on the level of heavy metal among the population of the region, including its level in the hair, is fragmentary ( Shuvalova et al., 2018 ; Rumiantseva et al., 2018 ).…”