Mercury is extremely toxic and it only takes a few mg of mercury to kill you. It is primarily released from the burning of coal to generate electricity and there is more than enough flying around in the environment to cause you serious damage. Consider this - there are 454,000 mg of mercury in a pound and nearly 5 million pounds of mercury was released into the environment in the US alone.

Bacteria and chemical reactions in lakes and wetlands change the mercury into a much more toxic form known as methylmercury. Fish become contaminated with methylmercury by eating food (plankton and smaller fish), which has absorbed the methylmercury.

As long as the fish continue to be exposed to mercury, mercury continually builds up in fish's bodies. Fish that eat other fish become even more highly contaminated.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Academy of Sciences have determined that eating mercury-contaminated fish is the primary route of exposure to mercury for most people.

Some fish have less mercury then others, but it has been my experience that nearly all fish are contaminated with mercury. I have done thousands of hair mineral analysis on patients and can confidently tell you this is true.

I have known that mercury in fish has been a problem for some time now, and used to warn that one should restrict fish consumption to a few species. Because some fish have less mercury then others, I thought certain types of fish, eaten in limited quantities, were acceptable.

However, upon more study, I have changed my position. It is my experience that nearly all fish are contaminated with mercury. I have done thousands of hair mineral analysis on patients and the patients who don't eat fish are the only ones who don’t have significant levels of mercury in their hair. Anyone eating fish has mercury and nearly always in direct proportion to the frequency they are eating fish.

It appears that we have, with present technology, irreversibly contaminated the waters of the world to the point that all fish are now toxic, and although I suspect technology will develop in the next few centuries that will clean up this mess, for now we are stuck with this fact.

It is my strong recommendation to avoid all fish, unless you are absolutely certain that it has been tested in a laboratory and shown not to contain detectable levels of mercury and other toxins.

It has mercury that will absolutely compromise your health.

We all need the omega-3 fats, but you should get them from a clean source. Most of the fish oil supplements go through a molecular distillation process to clean out the mercury, but you should definitely contact the manufacturer directly to confirm that this process takes place.

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