High-quality food helps reduce toxins in the food chain
New findings published in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences will
allow scientists to predict the
conditions under which freshwater fish are likely to carry
high mercury levels. A new study led by Roxanne Karimi,
a graduate student in the Dartmouth Toxic Metals Research
Program, shows that animals fed nutritious, high-quality
food end up with much lower concentrations of toxic methylmercury
in their tissues. Theresult
suggests ways in which methylmercury—a
neurotoxin that can accumulate to hazardous levels—can
be slowed in its passage up the food chain to fish. MORE
