Abstract
The aim of this paper is to systematically review the scientific literature on the possible relation of chronic mercury exposure and blood pressure among children and adolescents. We searched for observational studies in 6 electronic databases and grey literature for English, French or Spanish language studies published up to 30th November 2017. We performed a quality assessment of primary studies. We identified 8 articles involving 5 cohorts, 1 cross-sectional study and 1 case-control study. The participants had mean ages of between 3 and 17 years. Mercury was analysed in different matrices and periods of exposure. Four articles evaluated prenatal exposure, 2 evaluated both prenatal and postnatal exposures and 2 postnatal exposure. Blood pressure was measured according to different protocols. The association between mercury and blood pressure was adjusted by different covariates in each study. Four articles found a positive significant association between chronic mercury exposure and blood pressure in children or adolescents. Among these 4 articles, three of them evaluated prenatal exposure. There are still few studies assessing chronic mercury exposure and blood pressure in children and adolescents with inconsistency in results. Designs are very heterogeneous, which hampers their comparability. Evidence of this association is scarce and further research is needed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Abbreviations
- BP:
-
Blood pressure
- DBP:
-
Diastolic blood pressure
- DHA:
-
Docosahexaenoic acid
- EPA:
-
Eicosapentaenoic acid
- MeHg:
-
Methylmercury
- PCB:
-
Polychlorinated biphenyls
- PUFAs:
-
Polyunsaturated fatty acids
- SBP:
-
Systolic blood pressure
- WOS:
-
Web of Science
References
Abad García MF, González Teruel A, Argento J, Rodríguez Gairín JM (2015) Characteristics and visibility of Spanish journals in Health Sciences and databases. Abad García María Francisca González Teruel Aurora M Argento Javier Rodríguez Gairín Josep Man 2015. Prof Inf 24(5):537–550. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2015.sep.04 (in Spanish)
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (2018) Glossary of terms | ATSDR. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/glossary.html#G-A-. Accessed 28 Apr 2018
Balbus JM, Barouki R, Birnbaum LS et al (2013) Early-life prevention of non-communicable diseases. Lancet Lond Engl 381:3–4. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61609-2
Berglund M, Lind B, Björnberg KA et al (2005) Inter-individual variations of human mercury exposure biomarkers: a cross-sectional assessment. Environ Health Glob Access Sci Source 4:20. https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-4-20
Bernhoft RA (2012) Mercury toxicity and treatment: a review of the literature. J Environ Public Health 2012:460508. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/460508
Bose-O’Reilly S, McCarty KM, Steckling N, Lettmeier B (2010) Mercury exposure and children’s health. Curr Probl Pediatr Adolesc Health Care 40:186–215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cppeds.2010.07.002
Brady TM, Solomon BS, Neu AM et al (2010) Patient-, provider-, and clinic-level predictors of unrecognized elevated blood pressure in children. Pediatrics 125:e1286–e1293. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2009-0555
Brady TM, Stefani-Glücksberg A, Simonetti GD (2018) Management of high blood pressure in children: similarities and differences between US and European guidelines. Pediatr Nephrol Berl Ger. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00467-018-3946-y
Cascaes da Silva F, Arancibia V, Angélica B et al (2013) Evaluation lists and scales for the quality of scientific studies. Rev Cuba Inf En Cienc Salud 24:295–312 (in Spanish)
Choi AL, Cordier S, Weihe P, Grandjean P (2008) Negative confounding in the evaluation of toxicity: the case of methylmercury in fish and seafood. Crit Rev Toxicol 38:877–893. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408440802273164
Dionne JM (2017) Updated guideline may improve the recognition and diagnosis of hypertension in children and adolescents; review of the 2017 AAP blood pressure clinical practice guideline. Curr Hypertens Rep 19:84. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11906-017-0780-8
Flynn JT, Kaelber DC, Baker-Smith CM et al (2017) Clinical practice guideline for screening and management of high blood pressure in children and adolescents. Pediatrics 140. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2017-1904
Foraster M, Basagaña X, Aguilera I et al (2014) Association of long-term exposure to traffic-related air pollution with blood pressure and hypertension in an adult population-based cohort in Spain (the REGICOR study). Environ Health Perspect 122:404–411. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1306497
GBD 2016 Disease and Injury Incidence and Prevalence Collaborators (2017) Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 328 diseases and injuries for 195 countries, 1990-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Lancet Lond Engl 390:1211–1259. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32154-2
Geleijnse JM, Giltay EJ, Grobbee DE et al (2002) Blood pressure response to fish oil supplementation: metaregression analysis of randomized trials. J Hypertens 20:1493–1499
Genchi G, Sinicropi MS, Carocci A et al (2017) Mercury exposure and heart diseases. Int J Environ Res Public Health 14. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14010074
Gluckman PD, Cutfield W, Hofman P, Hanson MA (2005) The fetal, neonatal, and infant environments-the long-term consequences for disease risk. Early Hum Dev 81:51–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2004.10.003
Grandjean P, Budtz-Jørgensen E (2010) An ignored risk factor in toxicology: the total imprecision of exposure assessment. Pure Appl Chem Chim Pure Appl 82:383–391. https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-CON-09-05-04
Grandjean P, Murata K, Budtz-Jørgensen E, Weihe P (2004) Cardiac autonomic activity in methylmercury neurotoxicity: 14-year follow-up of a Faroese birth cohort. J Pediatr 144:169–176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2003.10.058
Grandjean P, Budtz-Jørgensen E, Jørgensen PJ, Weihe P (2005) Umbilical cord mercury concentration as biomarker of prenatal exposure to methylmercury. Environ Health Perspect 113:905–908. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.7842
Gregory S, Iles-Caven Y, Hibbeln JR et al (2016) Are prenatal mercury levels associated with subsequent blood pressure in childhood and adolescence? The Avon prebirth cohort study. BMJ Open 6:e012425. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012425
Gribble MO, Cheng A, Berger RD et al (2015) Mercury exposure and heart rate variability: a systematic review. Curr Environ Health Rep 2:304–314. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40572-015-0053-0
Grotto D, de Castro MM, Barcelos GRM et al (2009) Low level and sub-chronic exposure to methylmercury induces hypertension in rats: nitric oxide depletion and oxidative damage as possible mechanisms. Arch Toxicol 83:653–662. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00204-009-0437-8
Hansen ML, Gunn PW, Kaelber DC (2007) Underdiagnosis of hypertension in children and adolescents. JAMA J Am Med Assoc 298:874–879. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.298.8.874
Hao Y, Wu B, Shi J et al (2011) Association of tag SNPs of GPx-3 with essential hypertension in rural Han Chinese in Fuxin, Liaoning, China. Chin Med J 124:2113–2116
Hardy R, Lawlor DA, Kuh D (2015) A life course approach to cardiovascular aging. Futur Cardiol 11:101–113. https://doi.org/10.2217/fca.14.67
Holmes P, James KAF, Levy LS (2009) Is low-level environmental mercury exposure of concern to human health? Sci Total Environ 408:171–182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2009.09.043
Houston MC (2011) Role of mercury toxicity in hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and stroke. J Clin Hypertens Greenwich Conn 13:621–627. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-7176.2011.00489.x
Houston MC (2014) The role of mercury in cardiovascular disease. J Cardiovasc Dis Diagn 2014. https://doi.org/10.4172/2329-9517.1000170
Islam MZ, Van Dao C, Shiraishi M, Miyamoto A (2016) Methylmercury affects cerebrovascular reactivity to angiotensin II and acetylcholine via Rho-kinase and nitric oxide pathways in mice. Life Sci 147:30–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lfs.2016.01.033
Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) (2011) Safety evaluation of certain food additives and contaminants. Geneva, Switzerland. http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2011/9789241660631_eng.pdf. Accessed 26 July 2016
Kalish BT, Rifas-Shiman SL, Wright RO et al (2014) Associations of prenatal maternal blood mercury concentrations with early and mid-childhood blood pressure: a prospective study. Environ Res 133:327–333. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2014.06.004
Kessler R (2013) The Minamata Convention on Mercury: a first step toward protecting future generations. Environ Health Perspect 121:A304–A309
Kim B-M, Choi AL, Ha E-H et al (2014) Effect of hemoglobin adjustment on the precision of mercury concentrations in maternal and cord blood. Environ Res 132:407–412. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2014.04.030
Lancet T (2017) Minamata Convention on mercury: a contemporary reminder. Lancet 390:822. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32287-0
Llop S, Lopez-Espinosa M-J, Rebagliato M, Ballester F (2013) Gender differences in the neurotoxicity of metals in children. Toxicology 311:3–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tox.2013.04.015
Llop S, Ballester F, Broberg K (2015) Effect of gene-mercury interactions on mercury toxicokinetics and neurotoxicity. Curr Environ Health Rep 2:179–194. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40572-015-0047-y
Lurbe E, Garcia-Vicent C, Torro MI et al (2014) Associations of birth weight and postnatal weight gain with cardiometabolic risk parameters at 5 years of age. Hypertension 63:1326–1332. https://doi.org/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.114.03137
Lurbe E, Agabiti-Rosei E, Cruickshank JK et al (2016) 2016 European Society of Hypertension guidelines for the management of high blood pressure in children and adolescents. J Hypertens. https://doi.org/10.1097/HJH.0000000000001039
Mozaffarian D, Rimm EB (2006) Fish intake, contaminants, and human health: evaluating the risks and the benefits. JAMA J Am Med Assoc 296:1885–1899. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.296.15.1885
Mozaffarian D, Wu JHY (2011) Omega-3 fatty acids and cardiovascular disease: effects on risk factors, molecular pathways, and clinical events. J Am Coll Cardiol 58:2047–2067. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2011.06.063
Nakamura S, Kugiyama K, Sugiyama S et al (2002) Polymorphism in the 5’-flanking region of human glutamate-cysteine ligase modifier subunit gene is associated with myocardial infarction. Circulation 105:2968–2973
National Research Council (NRC) (2000) Toxicological effects of methylmercury. Academic Press, Washington, DC
O’Brien E (2017) The Lancet Commission on hypertension: addressing the global burden of raised blood pressure on current and future generations. J Clin Hypertens Greenwich Conn 19:564–568. https://doi.org/10.1111/jch.12998
Park J-D, Zheng W (2012) Human exposure and health effects of inorganic and elemental mercury. J Prev Med Public Health Yebang Ŭihakhoe Chi 45:344–352. https://doi.org/10.3961/jpmph.2012.45.6.344
Poursafa P, Ataee E, Motlagh ME et al (2014) Association of serum lead and mercury level with cardiometabolic risk factors and liver enzymes in a nationally representative sample of adolescents: the CASPIAN-III study. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int 21:13496–13502. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-3238-4
Rice KM, Walker EM, Wu M et al (2014) Environmental mercury and its toxic effects. J Prev Med Public Health Yebang Ŭihakhoe Chi 47:74–83. https://doi.org/10.3961/jpmph.2014.47.2.74
Rinke ML, Singh H, Heo M et al (2018) Diagnostic errors in primary care pediatrics: project RedDE. Acad Pediatr 18:220–227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2017.08.005
Roman HA, Walsh TL, Coull BA et al (2011) Evaluation of the cardiovascular effects of methylmercury exposures: current evidence supports development of a dose-response function for regulatory benefits analysis. Environ Health Perspect 119:607–614. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1003012
Roulet C, Bovet P, Brauchli T et al (2017) Secular trends in blood pressure in children: a systematic review. J Clin Hypertens Greenwich Conn 19:488–497. https://doi.org/10.1111/jch.12955
Ruggieri F, Majorani C, Domanico F, Alimonti A (2017) Mercury in children: current state on exposure through human biomonitoring studies. Int J Environ Res Public Health 14. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14050519
Sanderson S, Tatt ID, Higgins JP (2007) Tools for assessing quality and susceptibility to bias in observational studies in epidemiology: a systematic review and annotated bibliography. Int J Epidemiol 36:666–676. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dym018
Sheehan MC, Burke TA, Navas-Acien A et al (2014) Global methylmercury exposure from seafood consumption and risk of developmental neurotoxicity: a systematic review. Bull World Health Organ 92:254–269F. https://doi.org/10.2471/BLT.12.116152
Simkhovich BZ, Kleinman MT, Kloner RA (2008) Air pollution and cardiovascular injury epidemiology, toxicology, and mechanisms. J Am Coll Cardiol 52:719–726. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2008.05.029
Sørensen N, Murata K, Budtz-Jørgensen E et al (1999) Prenatal methylmercury exposure as a cardiovascular risk factor at seven years of age. Epidemiol Camb Mass 10:370–375
Stergiou GS, Parati G, Asmar R et al (2012) Requirements for professional office blood pressure monitors. J Hypertens 30:537–542. https://doi.org/10.1097/HJH.0b013e32834fcfa5
Streets DG, Horowitz HM, Jacob DJ et al (2017) Total mercury released to the environment by human activities. Environ Sci Technol 51:5969–5977. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7b00451
Stroup DF, Berlin JA, Morton SC et al (2000) Meta-analysis of observational studies in epidemiology: a proposal for reporting. Meta-analysis Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) group. JAMA 283:2008–2012
Sundseth K, Pacyna JM, Pacyna EG et al (2017) Global sources and pathways of mercury in the context of human health. Int J Environ Res Public Health 14. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14010105
Syversen T, Kaur P (2012) The toxicology of mercury and its compounds. J Trace Elem Med Biol 26:215–226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtemb.2012.02.004
Thurston SW, Bovet P, Myers GJ et al (2007) Does prenatal methylmercury exposure from fish consumption affect blood pressure in childhood? Neurotoxicology 28:924–930. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuro.2007.06.002
United Nations Environment Programme. (2013) Mercury: Time to act. Geneva, Switzerland: UNEP Chemicals Branch. http://cwm.unitar.org/cwmplatformscms/site/assets/files/1254/mercury_timetoact.pdf. Accessed 26 July 2016
Valera B, Dewailly E, Poirier P et al (2011) Influence of mercury exposure on blood pressure, resting heart rate and heart rate variability in French Polynesians: a cross-sectional study. Environ Health Glob Access Sci Source 10:99. https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-10-99
Valera B, Muckle G, Poirier P et al (2012) Cardiac autonomic activity and blood pressure among Inuit children exposed to mercury. Neurotoxicology 33:1067–1074
Vandenbroucke JP, von Elm E, Altman DG et al (2007) Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE): explanation and elaboration. PLoS Med 4:e297. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040297
Virtanen JK, Rissanen TH, Voutilainen S, Tuomainen T-P (2007) Mercury as a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. J Nutr Biochem 18:75–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnutbio.2006.05.001
Wakita Y (1987) Hypertension induced by methyl mercury in rats. Toxicol Appl Pharmacol 89:144–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/0041-008X(87)90185-2
WHO (1991) Environmental Health Criteria 118. Inorganic Mercury. Switzerland, Geneva http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc118.htm. Accessed 24 Apr 2018
WHO (2007) Exposure to mercury: a major public health concern. Switzerland, Geneva http://www.who.int/phe/news/Mercury-flyer.pdf. Accessed 26 July 2016
WHO (2010) Children’s exposure to mercury compounds. Switzerland, Geneva http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/44445/9789241500456_eng.pdf;jsessionid=06ED69CBBAF04FFD9FB778C8B308C141?sequence=1. Accessed 01 July 2017
WHO (2013a) A global brief on hypertension. Silent killer, global public health crisis. Switzerland, Geneva http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/79059/WHO_DCO_WHD_2013.2_eng.pdf?sequence=1. Accessed 28 Apr 2018
WHO (2013b) Mercury and health. Switzerland, Geneva http://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mercury-and-health. Accessed 24 Apr 2018
WHO-UNEP (2008) Guidance for identifying populations at risk from mercury exposure. Switzerland, Geneva https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/11786/IdentifyingPopnatRiskExposuretoMercury_2008Web.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Accessed 25 June 2017
Acknowledgments
We thank Beatriz Valera, Ph.D. for providing her manuscript and M. Francisca Abad, Ph.D. for her recommendations on databases and documentation.
Contributors
All the authors participated in the conception of the article. Gema Gallego-Viñas designed the search strategy. Gema Gallego-Viñas and Sabrina Llop searched for and selected relevant articles. All the authors participated in data extraction, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the article, and final approval of the version to be published.
Funding
This work was supported by Miguel Servet-FEDER (MS 15/0025) and FIS-FEDER (16_1288).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gallego-Viñas, G., Ballester, F. & Llop, S. Chronic mercury exposure and blood pressure in children and adolescents: a systematic review. Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 2238–2252 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-3796-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-3796-y