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Human Impacts

Methylmercury Exposure of Indigenous Northern People's through Traditional Diet

Since the mid 1990’s, the concern of health side effects from methylmercury consumption in the Arctic has been rising The populations most at risk are Northern Indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic from the following locations: Canada, Russia, Denmark, and the United States. Mercury exposure affects Canada’s Northern indigenous communities through their cultural subsistence lifestyle that is highly reliant on marine animals. The traditional diet of the Northern Inuit tribes include top marine mammal predators like beluga, narwhal, and seals, all of which are major sources of methylmercury because of bioaccumulation.

In the ocean, inorganic mercury converts to methylmercury (MeHg), which is its toxic organic state. It then enters the food web, biomagnifies, and is transferred up the food chain, successively increasing in concentration through each trophic level. The Biomagnification of methylmercury affects subsistence items including: fish, mammals, seabirds, and vegetation.

Western development has increased the contamination of mercury, and it is seen as a lack of respect by Indigenous peoples.  In northern Quebec, 40% of the fish, 32% of ocean mammals, and 64% of terrestrial mammals exceeded the guidelines Hg level of 0.5μ/g.

Effects of Methylmercury Consumption on Indigenous Northern People's

Once ingested, 90% of MeHg is absorbed throughout the gastrointestinal tract, which can induce damage to the central nervous system that can be severe and irreversible. Side effects can include: muscle weakness, vision changes, numbness in extremities, birth defects, and in severe cases, death.

Methylmercury exposure in early childhood presents risk to their development For children born in these Arctic tribes, 95% of their methylmercury intake comes from their dependence of marine mammals such as beluga muktuk, narwhal muktuk, ringed seal liver, fish, caribou meat and ringed seal meat.Boucher et al. studied a cohort of Native Arctic children since birth for 20 years and found above the Canadian guidance value in 17% of children. Of those 17% of children's, there were adverse effects on recognition memory.

Diet Transitions for Indigenous Northern People's

Mercury levels are rising in high protein foods that were once a traditional part of Indigenous culture. Lye et al., found that 53.3% of indigenous women aged 18-39 in northern Quebec had values above the guidance value. Indigenous people are now replacing their high protein foods with high carb foods. The process that occurs when the traditional and local diet of Native Americans is replaced with a ‘western’ store bought diet is called the nutrition transition. The store bought food often holds high contents of refined carbohydrates and saturated fats, but low in the nutrients, vitamins and essential unsaturated fats that Native American bodies need and are used to. This can lead to obesity and related diseases among native communities as the traditional nutrient-rich organ meats are not available at grocery stores.

Science Communication Errors with Indigenous Northern People's

As methylmercury consumption is a fairly new discovery, scientists at first thought that the spike in mercury was due to Minamata disease. An example of this can be seen from the 1970’s when the Salluit Tribe in Salluit, Quebec, residents reported high levels of mercury in their blood. The media misinformed the public and referred to their high mercury levels as Minamata disease. As a result of fear from the indigenous community, the Salluit Tribe cut out their country diet, and they saw a drop in mercury levels but an increase in obesity and related diseases. While mercury levels dropped, this incident showed how misleading information can make it harder for scientists to pinpoint where the high mercury levels were coming from and how transitioning to an new diet a detrimental option for Native Arctic communities.