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Health Risk of Consuming Heavy Metals in Farmed Tilapia in Central Taiwan

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Abstract

Taiwan is a small island nation, and many aquaculture sites are located near industrial parks. Anthropogenic activities may contaminate fish ponds. Therefore, we investigated the concentrations of eight metal elements in tilapia tissues (muscle and scale) at two fisheries. We compared the difference in metal content in tilapia at these two fisheries with that in non-contaminated fish at the Fisheries Research Institute. Probabilistic risk analysis was carried out to assess the health risk for people who eat contaminated tilapia. The predicted 95th percentiles of the hazard quotient and excess lifetime cancer risk for residents consuming contaminated tilapia were found to be in the range of 3.1–9.2 and 1.03 × 10−5 ~ 1.85 × 10−5, respectively.

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Acknowledgments

The study was funded by China Medical University (CMU 97-245). The authors deeply appreciate Dr. Liu in Fisheries Research Institute at Chu-Pei for kindly providing the valuable fish samples.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Risk Management, China Medical University, Taichung, 404, Taiwan

    Min-Pei Ling, Hui-Tsung Hsu & Yu-Syuan Hong

  2. Advanced Monitoring and Analytical Department, Energy and Environmental Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, 300, Taiwan

    Ruei-Hao Shie

  3. Department of Public Health, China Medical University, Taichung, 404, Taiwan

    Chin-Ching Wu

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  1. Min-Pei Ling
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  2. Hui-Tsung Hsu
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  3. Ruei-Hao Shie
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  4. Chin-Ching Wu
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  5. Yu-Syuan Hong
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Correspondence to Hui-Tsung Hsu.

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Ling, MP., Hsu, HT., Shie, RH. et al. Health Risk of Consuming Heavy Metals in Farmed Tilapia in Central Taiwan. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 83, 558–564 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-009-9829-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-009-9829-y

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