Prenatal Methylmercury Exposure as a Cardiovascular Risk Factor at Seven Years of Age

The Scientific Paper:

Nicolina Sorensen, Katsuyuki, Esban Budtz-Jorgensen, Pal Weihe, and Philippe Grandjean. Epidemiology Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 370-375. 1999.

Review This Scientific Paper’s Abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db
=PubMed&list_uids=10401870&dopt=Abstract

The Purpose of this Study:
To study whether methylmercury exposure in the womb by the mother eating fish during her pregnancy may increase the risks for heart disease in her infant later in the infant’s lifetime.

Some Background, Methods, Results, Caveats, and Other Select Points:

• This peer-reviewed, scientific paper was published in 1999.
• These scientists further studied 1,000 children in The Faroe Islands Study when these children were seven years old. The children were evaluated for their blood pressure, heart rate, and if their heart rate varied. These scientists then compared the findings with the children’s methylmercury exposure in the womb.
• These scientists state that several outside influences including the mothers smoking tobacco, and drinking alcohol, the mothers’ age, weight, and height – plus how long the child was breastfed – may be partial causes of the children’s increased blood pressure.
• The average low and high blood pressure readings in the Faroese children are similar to results obtained in other groups of children at the same age.
• These children eat a great many foods caught from the ocean. This source of regularly eaten foods caused a widely varying methylmercury exposure – which in turn caused some high methylmercury exposures in the womb. And a high methylmercury exposure in the womb was related to increases in the children’s blood pressure readings.
• Blood pressure changes happened only at the low methylmercury exposures.
• The heart rate variability in the boys decreased with increasing methylmercury exposures. This suggests that methylmercury exposure in the womb may harm the heart and/or circulation later in the child’s life.
• Methylmercury had a greater detectable effect in these children that were born at a smaller weight.

A Bottom Line:
The varying heart rate is only weakly related to the other risk factors found here.

The influence of methylmercury exposure on blood pressure appears to depend on the child’s birthweight.

Find This Scientific Paper for Your Review:
Prenatal Methylmercury Exposure as a Cardiovascular Risk Factor at Seven Years of Age. Epidemiology Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 370-375. 1999.