Relationship between indicators of human mercury exposure in a coastal area, South Korea
The toxicity of mercury in human depends on a lot of factors such as chemical forms of mercury, exposure routes, amounts and duration. There are many kinds of indicators of human mercury exposures. The aims of this study are to analysis the various indicators for the human mercury exposure-total mercury in blood, methylmercury in blood, total mercury in urine and total mercury in hair, and to assess the relationships between the indicators.
METHODS:
The blood, urine and hair specimens were sampled from 397 adults who live in a coastal area, South Korea. Total mercury concentration in blood samples was measured using a gold amalgam collection method (DMA-80, Milestone) and methylmercury in blood was measured using a cold vapor fluorescence spectrometry (MERX, Brooks Rand). A gold amalgam collection method was used for total mercury analysis in urine (SP-3DS, NIC) and hair (DMA-80, Milestone).
RESULTS:
The geometric means of total mercury in blood, methylmercury in blood, total mercury in urine and total mecury in hair were respectively 5.27 ± 1.73 ㎍/ℓ, 4.06 ± 1.91 ㎍/ℓ, 1.58 ± 1.94 ㎍/ℓ and 1.29 ± 1.88 ㎍/ℓ. The proportion over the HBM Ⅰ for the total mercury in blood was estimated as 56% and 11% for the total mercury in urine. The Spearman's correlation coefficients for total mercury in blood were 0.94 with methylmercury in blood, 0.60 with total mercury in urine, and 0.26 with total mercury in hair.
CONCLUSIONS:
The total mercury concentration in blood showed relatively high correlation coefficient with the methylmercury in blood. As the total mercury concentration in urine usually is known to represent the inorganic mercury exposure, the relationship between the total mercury in urine and the methylmercury in blood was different according to gender and fish consumption level.