Spanish women accumulate six times more mercury than the European average, as revealed by the preliminary results of a study funded by the European Commission in which various institutions and universities on the continent participate. The project, called Democophes, is analyzing the presence of different pollutants in pairs of mothers and children from 17 European countries.
Researchers have collected data from almost 2,000 pairs of mothers and children from 17 European countries, and have analyzed the presence in their bodies of environmental pollutantsmercury, cadmium, cotinine, phthalates, and bisphenol A, present in food, in the air, or in cosmetic products.
Mercury is a highly toxic metal that accumulates in fish and shellfish, especially those high up in the food chain. Because of this, populations whosediets are richer in fishthey tend to accumulate metal in the body. According to the results of the study, Spanish women accumulate six times more mercury than the European average, followed by Portugal, Cyprus, Denmark, Luxembourg and Belgium. In addition, the researchers found that 1.4 percent of the children and 3.4 percent of the mothers tested had mercury levels above those recommended by the World Health Organization.
As for the rest of the pollutants studied, the values found for the Spanish sample were also high.In the case of cotinine, a compound associated with tobacco use, women ranked fifth, phthalates fourth, and bisphenol A third.Only in the case of cadmium were the values found below the European average.
Although the researchers point out that the sample used is not representative of the European population, it is the first study to combine data from various countries and analyze them with a common protocol that allows comparisons to be made. The future results of this and other investigations will allow to have sufficient data to evaluate if it is necessary to modify the legislation and the permitted levels of the environmental pollutants studied.
