It’s
not hard these days to find stories in the popular media about the presence of
various chemical contaminants in our environment. Included in this genre are stories about
trace levels of chemicals in common consumer products, in the air we breathe,
and in the water we drink. Almost
inevitably the stories suggest that even minor exposures are harming our
health.
Making
it worse, the consumer media is famous for producing scare stories that are
short on scientific rigor. If you’re a
scientist with a lot of spare time on your hands, you can always conduct your
own scientific assessment of the safety of a particular contaminant. But that’s not an easy task and even few
scientists will have the time or detailed knowledge to do a thorough
assessment.
Perhaps
the most emotionally compelling stories involve trace levels of contaminants in
the food we eat. If we’re concerned
about safety, we may be able to avoid certain consumer products, but we can’t
avoid food. In particular it’s difficult,
and not advisable, to avoid foods that provide important nutritional
benefits.
As
consumers, that leaves us in a difficult position that may feel like we’re picking
our poison. Do we risk our health by
eating foods that may contain trace levels of a potentially harmful
contaminant, or do we avoid the contaminant and risk our health by missing out
on essential nutrients?
A
good example is the case of bisphenol
A (BPA). It’s well
known that we’re exposed to low levels of BPA and that most of the exposure
comes from our diet. Government bodies
around the world have concluded that BPA is safe at typical exposure
levels. But beyond those general aspects,
it’s not easy to know how much BPA is in specific foods, and to confirm whether
those levels are safe.
A
new and easy to use on-line tool known as FishChoice now
allows consumers to easily calculate intake of BPA, and more than 20 other
common contaminants, from consumption of fresh and canned seafood based on
individual consumer consumption patterns.
In accordance with recommendations of international organizations, calculated
intakes are compared with health-based guidance values to determine if the
intake is healthy.
For
BPA, the tool reveals that even high consumption of seafood is unlikely to
result in an unhealthy intake of BPA. Based
on internationally accepted guidelines, we can confidently enjoy seafood and
receive its nutritional benefits without concern about BPA.
Why Eat Seafood?
Along
with simply liking seafood, it’s well recognized that fish and shellfish are an
important part of a healthy diet. Not
only does seafood provide protein, but it also provides nutrients including
vitamins, minerals, and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids.
The
latter is particularly important since a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease
has been linked to consumption of omega-3 fatty acids. Some fish are particularly enriched in these
fatty acids and international
health agencies recommend 1-2 fish servings per week, at
least partly for that reason.
Although
consumption of seafood has clear health benefits, seafood can also be a source
of various environmental contaminants, which could introduce health risks if
consumption is too high. Balancing
health benefits with potential risks is important, but may not be so easy for
consumers to evaluate the trade-offs and make rational decisions.
How Does FishChoice Help Consumers?
A
European Union (EU) funded project known as ECsafeSEAFOOD is
aimed at assessing food safety issues related to various contaminants in seafood
and their impact on human health. In a
key output from this project, contaminant data from analysis of seafood samples
from throughout the EU were integrated with nutrient information in a new
on-line tool named FishChoice.
Along
with the on-line tool, the researchers who created the tool have recently
published a guide
to the tool in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. The tool is freely available for use by
consumers, and additional information can be accessed upon request in the Pro
version of the tool.
Essentially
what the tool does is calculate intake of various common contaminants from
consumption of seafood, compare the intake with health-based guidance values
from authoritative sources, and provide a simple graphical answer to indicate
if the intake is safe. Although the
answer may be simple, quite a bit of work has gone on behind the scenes to
ensure that the answer is scientifically defensible – work that would be
difficult, if not impossible, for consumers to do on their own.
Along
with information on contaminants, FishChoice
also provides information on intake of key nutrients and comparison of those
intakes with recommended levels. For
both contaminants and nutrients, intakes are individually customized for
specific consumption patterns (i.e., >20 types of fresh and canned seafood,
up to 7 servings of 3 portion sizes, 8 demographic profiles), which allows
consumers to make rational decisions on whether and how to change their
consumption patterns.
What Does FishChoice Tell Us About
BPA in Seafood?
The
utility of FishChoice
is demonstrated with BPA as an example of a contaminant that might be a concern
to consumers. For example, selecting a
demographic category (children 3-9 years), a seafood (canned tuna), portion size
(80 grams), and number of weekly servings (7) results in a graphic showing a “green fish,” which indicates that
the low level of BPA in the seafood is healthy, whereas a red fish would
indicate that changes in consumption patterns are needed.
The
actual BPA intake numbers (available in the Pro version) indicate the BPA
exposure in this example is more than 70 times below the maximum recommended
exposure, which is based on the most stringent safe exposure limit recently set
by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
Given the large margin of safety, it would be virtually impossible to
take in an unhealthy amount of BPA from eating seafood.
The
results for BPA are consistent with EFSA’s recent conclusion on the safety of
BPA (“BPA
poses no health risk to consumers of any age group
(including unborn children, infants and adolescents) at current exposure levels.”) Similarly, the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, based on its assessment, answers the question “Is
BPA safe?” with the straightforward answer “Yes.” With FishChoice,
we can see that these overall conclusions are clearly applicable to seafood.
