Esto parece uno de esos mensajes avisando de una gilipollez que aparecen por internet, pero no es así.
Después de leer este artículo sobre el envenenamiento de algunas personas en Baja California debido a la ingestión de muy altas cantidades de pescado de gran tamaño (atunes, pez espada, etc) así como atún enlatado, quizás hay motivo para preocuparse aunque no comamos tanto como ellos.
Os añado algunos trozos traducidos del artículo :Fish eaters suffer ill effects of toxin
By L.C. Greene
Staff Writer
David Wright suffered mood swings, joint pain and seemingly non-stop headaches before he discovered what appeared to be the cause.
Dan Deeter lived as a near-invalid for about three years, wracked with pain, until a doctor performed a special test and he changed his diet.
Sintomas : cambios de humor, dolor en articulaciones y dolores de cabeza constantesAnd while Mike Brown "feels great," he nevertheless wondered about long-term damage.
All three Inland Valley men ate a lot of fish, including fresh bluefin tuna and swordfish and canned tuna. And all three had off-the-charts levels of a toxic heavy metal in their systems: mercury.
"My reading was so high, it's one you usually only read on an autopsy," Brown said he was told by his physician.
Tenia tanto mercurio en su cuerpo que unicamente lo encuentras en una autopsiaMore Americans seem to be questioning their seafood intake as a national debate roils over curbs on mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants, warning labels on seafood, and how bad the problem actually is.
This week, environmentalists cheered when a Bush administration measure giving power plants more time to reduce their toxic emissions stalled in a Senate committee.
In New Hampshire, the Conservation Law Foundation said it was filing suit against two Northeast power plants over mercury pollution.
And the nation's three major tuna canners continued to mourn falling sales. Since an FDA advisory last year on mercury in seafood, canned tuna sales have dropped 10percent.
Las ventas de latas de atún bajan un 10% en USA"It's a travesty," Bumble Bee Seafoods executive vice president John Stiker said Friday.
Canned tuna contains only trace amounts of mercury, is safe to eat, and Americans should be eating more of it for their health, he said.
Dr. Jane Hightower with the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco sees things differently.
The internal medicine specialist studied about 350 patients selected because of their fish-heavy diets. Nearly nine of 10 showed elevated and unsafe mercury levels.
9 de cada 10 personas que comen mucho pescado tienen niveles de mercurio en su cuerpo por encima de lo que es seguroBased on her findings, "It's quite common," Hightower said.
Mercury poisoning can be tough to pinpoint, often manifesting itself as vague neurological problems such as mood swings, depression and difficulty concentrating.
Tremors, spasms and joint pain can follow. And mercury can be especially damaging to the heart and other organs.
"Physicians don't know how to check for this problem," Hightower said.
Dan Deeter went undiagnosed for years.
The 53-year-old Alta Loma native, now living in Las Vegas, was eating a lot of tuna. In 1997, he started consuming one to two cans a day as part of The Zone Diet.
El enfermo comia un montón de atún en lata una o dos latas al dia, eso le causo el envenenamiento y estuvo varios años en cama incapaz."Tuna was what I chose as my protein," Deeter said.
Within a year, he started experiencing problems with fatigue. Driving became difficult.
"Then I had tremors and seizures," he said. Physicians were unable to diagnose the problem.
Between the end of 1998 and July 2003, Deeter said he spent most of his time in bed, unable to work, suffering spasms and pain. After exhaustive research, his wife, Teresa, concluded the problem might involve a poison.
Indeed, a test for mercury showed dangerously high levels in Deeter's system.
Now, almost two years later and completely off fish, Deeter said he's nearly well.
"I'm 85percent better. It's like night and day," he said.
Avid sportfisherman David Wright experienced similar problems, though not nearly as severe.
The 53-year-old Rancho Cucamonga pool maintenance contractor loved weeklong Pacific Ocean trips in search of big fish such as yellowtail and the rare and challenging bluefin tuna.
And he would eat what he caught. "I probably ate 50 pounds of fish a year," he said.
Otro ejemplo de una persona que comia 25 kilos de pescado al año tipo atún. Experimentó envenenamiento con dolores de cabeza que duraban dias, cambios de humor y dolor articular.For years, Wright said he suffered from migraine-like headaches, some lasting for days. Other symptoms included mood swings and joint pain.
When fellow sportfishermen suggested mercury might be the cause, Wright asked for the test. His reading came back at 12 times the maximum safe level.
Tenia 12 veces el nivel seguro en su cuerpo. No habian visto a nadie con esos niveles que no estuviera en coma"They had never seen anyone like this who wasn't in a coma," he said.
Wright cut his fish intake and went to smaller fish, those less likely to contain high levels of mercury.
That was four years ago. Now, the headaches are gone. But his mercury level, while substantially lower, remains over the limit. He plans to get tested again this week or next.
Se ha curado mas o menos comiendo peces pequeños (predadores con menos tiempo de adquiriri mercurio) y menos cantidad.
The larger the fish - those higher up the food chain - the higher the mercury content, generally. According to the principles of bioaccumulation, big fish eat lot of smaller fish, and the mercury becomes up to 100,000 times more concentrated.
Thus, catfish and salmon contain low levels of mercury, while shark and swordfish have the highest levels. Tuna falls between the two extremes.
Mike Brown, a health conscious 60-year-old senior executive from Claremont, got into eating swordfish salads back in the mid-1980s. He often put away three a week.
"I thought it was very healthy," he said.
Recent news about mercury in fish - specifically swordfish - prompted Brown to have his blood tested about seven months ago.
To his and his doctor's shock, the mercury reading came in at 22 times above the maximum safe limit.
A mercury blood test reading of zero to 10 is considered within the normal range, though some physicians maintain the number should not exceed five. Brown's level reached 228.
Despite the high reading, Brown experienced no apparent ill effects. "I must be impervious to that crap."
He went off the high-mercury fish, and after several months, his levels declined, but still are at more than seven times the safe level.
Brown, a dedicated weightlifter and former rock climber with a physique most 20-year-olds would envy, knows that while he feels fine, damage might have been done to his body from the mercury intake. "You never know what the long-term potential impacts are."
No sabes cual es el efecto de esto en el organismo a largo plazoThe short- and long-term impacts remain the focus of a debate. This past year, the FDA advised pregnant women or women who might become pregnant to steer clear of swordfish and shark and limit their intake of albacore tuna to one can a week.
Mercury is particularly toxic to developing fetuses and young children.
En USA se ha avisado a las mujeres embarazas que no coman ni tiburón ni pez espada y que limiten el atún ya que el mercurio hace su mayor efecto en los fetos.Environmentalists charged the FDA with caving to the tuna industry and allowing dangerous levels of consumption.
An environmentalist Web site -
www.gotmercury.org - features a calculator where one can determine probable mercury levels based on the kind and amount of fish and one's weight.
Puedes calcular tu propio nivel de mercurio en esta web www.gotmercury.org According to the calculator, which claims to use FDA estimates, one 6-ounce can of albacore tuna a week contains too much mercury for a 170-pound man.
Una lata a la semana es demasiado para un hombre adultoBumble Bee's Stiker said the reading is absurd. FDA standards include a tenfold safety margin, he said.
Americans consume one-fifth as much seafood as the Japanese and half of what Europeans eat.
Consumimos el doble de atún que los americanos"There is not a single person in America who is close to being at risk," Stiker said.
For the sake of our hearts, Americans should be eating more instead of less tuna, he said.
For the sake of safety, the tuna industry should be displaying warning labels on its cans, said California Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
In 2004, the state filed a lawsuit against the three major canned tuna producers -- Bumble Bee, Starkist and Chicken-of-the-Sea -- charging they violated Proposition 65 by failing to warn people about known toxins. Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, is meant to protect California citizens and the state's drinking water sources from chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm, and to inform citizens about exposures to such chemicals.
Restaurants serving fish and supermarkets also were included in the lawsuit. Many supermarket fish counters have already begun displaying warnings.
No trial date has been set for the suit.
