Whale meat gives hair mercuric sheen

People who frequently eat pilot whale meat tend to have abnormally high levels of mercury in their hair, according to a study of residents of the whaling town of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture.

The study was conducted by a team that included researchers from the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido and the College of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Daiichi University in Fukuoka Prefecture.

The team said there were three people whose hair mercury exceeded 50 parts per million, a level that can cause neurological symptoms.

Whales and dolphins tend to have high concentrations of mercury accumulated through the food chain.

Tetsuya Endo, an associate professor at the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, said it is unlikely the residents will immediately experience mercury-induced health problems, but those with high mercury levels should consider cutting down on the amount of whale they eat.

The group collected hair samples from 30 men and 20 women between last December and July and asked them how often they eat pilot whale meat.

Mercury levels averaged 21.6 ppm among the men and 11.9 ppm among the women, both of which are about 10 times the national average, it said.

The three people whose hair mercury levels exceeded 50 ppm were all men, the team said. The three men ate whale meat more than once a month.

The study found that mercury levels were halved in about two months if the test subjects stopped eating whale meat.