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Berkeley Wellness Alerts
February 24, 2010 | Comments: 0
Should You Be Tested for Mercury?
Reports about the dangers of mercury—from fish, dental fillings, and pollution—may make you wonder if you should get tested for mercury. But beware, the results can be misleading.
Mercury occurs naturally in the environment and also comes from industrial pollution. Since mercury is so widespread, almost all people have traces of it in their bodies. At high levels, mercury can cause gastrointestinal, kidney, and neurological damage and death. Even relatively low levels of mercury can harm fetuses, infants, and young children. That’s why pregnant (or potentially pregnant) women and young children should avoid certain large, high-mercury fish (shark, tilefish, swordfish, and king mackerel) and limit canned albacore tuna and tuna steaks. In fact, everyone should eat fish only two or three times a week and vary their intake.
Routine screening for mercury is not recommended. There are different types of mercury and different ways to measure it, which yield varying results. The choice of test depends largely on how a person was likely exposed. Urine tests, for instance, can’t detect methyl mercury (the type in fish), but blood tests can measure it. Hair, saliva, and breath tests tend to be least reliable. In addition, no one knows what to do about mildly elevated levels of mercury.
You should be tested for mercury if you think you have had high exposure—for instance, if you work with heavy metals at your job—and/or you have symptoms that your doctor thinks may be caused by mercury poisoning.
The symptoms of mercury poisoning vary greatly—from subtle to severe—so it’s easy to blame nearly any problem on it. Thus, misleading results from mercury testing can be used to frighten people into having unnecessary procedures, such as chelation therapy to remove heavy metals from the blood.
Because amalgam (“silver”) dental fillings contain mercury, some dentists (or other practitioners) do dubious mercury tests and then suggest removing the fillings. Amalgam may release minuscule amounts of mercury, but there is no evidence that these amounts are toxic or that they cause disease or other harm.
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