2010-2011 IL Fish Consumption Advisory
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- Published on Tuesday, 13 September 2011 16:14
- Written by Marek
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A Guide to Your Health
Fish are nutritious, but some fish contain chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), chlordane and methyl mercury.These chemicals get into the water fish live in and the food they eat, and over time they can build up to levels that may cause healtheffects in people who eat the fish. It is important to keep exposure to these chemicals as low as possible. The Illinois fish advisoryhelps you plan what sport fish to eat as well as how often they can be eaten. The fish advisory is not intended to discourage youfrom eating fish, but should be used as a guide to eating fish that are low in contaminants.
Statewide Methyl Mercury Advisory
Since 2002, the Illinois sport fish meal advice has been presented in an expanded format. Previously, advisories based on all contaminants in fish were found in one table. Due to a more restrictive approach for methyl mercury in fish, a general statewide advisoryfor predator fish is needed for women of childbearing age and children. In addition, a second table lists those waters where stricter advice for methyl mercury is necessary. This does not mean that fish have become more contaminated with methyl mercury,only that recent studies have shown that methyl mercury is more toxic than previously thought.
Health Benefits of Eating More Fish
Eating fish is good for you! When properly prepared, fish provide many health benefits. Many doctors suggest eating onehalfpound of fish each week to help prevent heart disease. In fact, the American Heart Association recommends eating two to threefish meals per week. The benefits of eating fish include:
• Almost any kind of fish may have real health benefits when it replaces a highfat source of protein in the diet. Possiblehealth effects associated with highfat diets include heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and several forms of cancer.
• Fish offer highquality protein with fewer calories than a similarsized portion of meat. For example, both catfish andground beef are about 18% protein. However, an 8ounce meal of the catfish will have only about 232 calories, while the regular ground beef will have about 640 calories.
• Freshwater and saltwater fish alike are both low in sodium and good sources of potassium, vitamins, and other minerals.
• Fish are generally low in cholesterol and saturated fats, which have been associated with high blood pressure and heartdisease. Eating fish regularly may lower the levels of cholesterol and saturated fats in your body.
• Scientific research has revealed beneficial roles of certain fish oils in nutrition and general health. While the benefits of fishon nutrition are still being studied, much of the current research is focused on various kinds of beneficial fats in fish, particularly a kind called omega3 fatty acids which are in some fish and fish oils. Some studies have indicated that these fattyacids play an important role in fetal development, and also have favorable effects on health conditions such as hardening ofthe arteries (atherosclerosis), high levels of cholesterol, high blood pressure, and perhaps even arthritis. Note that atherosclerosis, high blood pressure, and obesity are the three major dietrelated factors which increase the risk of developing coronary heart disease the cause of nearly half of all deaths in the United States today. Also, one in five Americans has a problem with atherosclerosis or high blood pressure.
Health Risks
Eating contaminated fish does not necessarily mean that you will experience health effects. The health problems that may result from chemicals that can build up in fish range from small changes that are hard to detect to birth defects and cancer. The mostsensitive of these possible health effects are small changes in infant measurements, such as low birth weights (caused by PCBs),and small changes in the normal physical or mental development of infants and children (caused by PCBs, chlordane, and methylmercury). Therefore, the meal advice contained in the following tables is primarily aimed at protecting mothers and their children.If you follow the guidance of the fish advisories, you will keep exposure to these chemicals low for both you and your children.
Cleaning and Cooking
Many chemicals are found at higher levels in the fat of the fish. You can reduce the amount of these chemicals and your exposure by properly trimming, skinning and cooking your catch. Cooking does not destroy chemicals in fish, but heat from cooking melts some of the fat in fish and allows some of the contaminated fat to drip away. Do not use the drippings to prepare broth,sauce, chowder or soup. These cleaning precautions will not reduce the amount of mercury in fish. Mercury is found throughout a fishʼs muscle tissue (the part you eat) rather than in the fat and skin. Therefore, the only way to reduce mercuryintake is to reduce the amount of contaminated fish you eat.
Methyl Mercury
Mercury is found in the environment because of natural and human activities. When moving through the environment, mercurygoes through a series of complex changes. Through these changes in lake and river sediments, an organic form of mercury,methyl mercury, is created. Methyl mercury is very persistent in the environment. Methyl mercury is transferred up the food chainto predator species, and can accumulate in people that eat these predator fish.
Methyl mercury is extremely toxic to humans and causes many adverse health effects. Health effects associated with eatingmethyl mercurycontaminated fish include impaired central nervous system function, kidney damage and failure, and gastrointestinal damage with higher methyl mercury exposure, and development delays in children with lower exposure. A recent reportby the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the population at highest risk for adverse health effects is the children ofwomen who eat large amounts of fish and seafood during pregnancy. This is due to the greater sensitivity of the developing nervous system of infants.
In order to protect the most sensitive populations, pregnant or nursing women, women of childbearing age, and childrenless than 15 years of age are advised to eat no more than one meal per week of predator fish. This advisory is based onrecent studies of families in several countries that eat many meals of fish having various amounts of methyl mercury, along withthe most recent mercury data from predator fish at sample points throughout the state. Predator fish include all species of blackbass (largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted), striped bass, white bass, hybrid striped bass, walleye, sauger, saugeye, flatheadcatfish, muskellunge, and northern pike. Since women beyond childbearing age and males over 15 years of age are at less risk for the effects of methyl mercury, these groups may continue to enjoy as many meals of predator fish as theyplease, except as noted below.
A few bodies of water have been found to have fish with higher levels of methyl mercury than in waters from the rest of the state. These waters require more restrictive meal advice than the general advice given above. The special advice is listed in the following table.
Meal Advice for Eating Sport Fish From Illinois Waters
• Measure fish from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail.
• One meal a week (52 meals per year), one meal a month (12 meals per year) and one meal every two months (sixmeals per year) is advice for how long to wait before eating your next meal of sport fish.
• Do not eat means no one should eat those fish because of very high contamination. (Note that the amount of contaminationin a fish listed on the “One meal a month” group is four times higher than the amount of contamination in a fish listed in the “One meal a week” group.)
• One “meal” is assumed to be onehalf pound of fish (weight before cooking) for a 150pound person. The meal advice isequally protective for larger people who eat larger meals and smaller people who eat smaller meals.
• Follow cooking and cleaning directions given above to prepare fish.
Due to levels of mercury greater than what has been found in most predator fish in Illinois, the following bodies of water require morerestrictive consumption advice.
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The following fish advisory is for eating trimmed and skinned fish (except smelt). The advice in this table has been developed to protectinfants, children and women of child bearing age. The advice may be over protective for women beyond child bearing age and adult men.
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(C) = Listed due to Chlordane contamination (P) = Listed due to Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) contamination Please note that the advisory changes for Lake Taylorville channel catfish and Fox Chain O’Lakes carp have been relaxedas the sizes listed in the consumption categories have increased reflecting a decrease in PCB concentrations. Additional information about Fish Advisories in Illinois can be found on the Illinois Dept. of Public Health website: http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/factsheets/fishadv.htm
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