Re: Consumer Reports says NO Tuna for pregnant moms

[Guest guest]

I wish they would have mentioned that 16 years ago when I was pregnant. Shark,

Swordfish, Tuna, those were staples.

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> Consumer Reports Warns Pregnant Women Against Canned Tuna

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<http://healthland.time.com/2010/12/07/consumer-reports-warns-on-mercury-in-cann\

ed-tuna/>

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> Pregnant women and children have long been warned that they should be wary of

> eating certain kinds of seafood because of the risk of mercury contamination.

> It's a real threat - mercury is a neurotoxin, and exposure in-utero at high

> levels can damage an infant's developing cognitive skills.

>

> Seafood can pose a danger because mercury - usually from the emissions of

> coal-fired power plants and other industrial sources - can accumulate in the

> tissue of fish, especially in predators high on the food chain. That includes

> tuna, and white (albacore) tuna is known to be especially high in mercury.

The

> Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency

> (EPA) both recommend that women of childbearing age and young children should

> eat no more than 12 ounces a week of light tuna, including 6 ounces of white

> tuna.

>

> But that may not be safe enough. Consumer Reports tested 42 samples of tuna

> from cans bought in and around New York and found that white tuna usually

> contains far more mercury than light tuna - and that women and children

should

> be even more cautious about eating the fish.

>

> After analyzing the tests, the magazine's fish-safety experts concluded that

> pregnant women should avoid eating ALL tuna as a precaution. Children over 45

> lbs. should stick to no more than 12.5 ounces of light tuna or 4 ounces of

> white tuna a week, while lighter children should have no more than 4 ounces

of

> light tuna or 1.5 ounces of white tuna. (Download a copy of the report here.)

>

> Why the stricter warnings? Every sample that Consumer Reports tested had

> measurable levels of mercury, ranging from 0.018 to 0.774 parts per million

> (ppm). Samples of white tuna ranged from 0.217 ppm to 0.774 ppm and averaged

> 0.427 ppm - enough that by eating 2.5 ounces of any of the tested samples, a

> woman would exceed the daily mercury intake considered safe by the EPA.

>

>

> Samples of light tuna ranged from 0.018 ppm to 0.176 ppm. That's low on

> average, but about half the tested samples contained enough mercury that

eating

> a single can would exceed the EPA's limit for women of child-bearing age.

>

> Indeed, it's the outliers that pose a particular danger, not so much the

> average. While light tuna especially on average doesn't contain that much

> mercury, there's the danger of spikes in certain samples - and there's no way

> for pregnant women to know if the canned tuna they're eating contains

unusually

> high levels of mercury. But the Consumer Reports study shows that it is a

real

> threat that cautious women should take seriously.

>

> Of course, limiting your [overall] seafood intake has its own risks. Omega-3

> fatty acids - found in fish - are thought to help in developing fetal nervous

> systems, and they're well-known to reduce the risk of heart attack and

stroke.

> The National Fisheries Institute, a trade group, noted that none of the

canned

> tuna it tested - even the outliers - exceeded the FDA's allowable limit of 1

> ppm or more. (That's the point at which the FDA is allowed to pull products

> from the shelves, though that's never been done.) The group also noted -

> cheekily - that Consumer Reports had apparently served tuna tartare at its

> recent holiday party, so it can't be that dangerous.

>

>

> Of course, the FDA's safety limits on mercury have long been considered too

lax

> - and compared to the rest of the world, they are. It will be a long time

> before we have definitive science on just how much mercury pregnant women can

> be exposed to without ill effect, but most people would agree that this is a

> time for the precautionary principle.

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