Nielsen J B, Andersen O, Grandjean P
Institute of Community Health, Odense University, Denmark.
Arch Toxicol. 1994;68(5):317-21. doi: 10.1007/s002040050075.
Recently established reference intervals demonstrate that blood mercury is significantly higher in women than in men. Mercury in blood and hair are both used as biomarkers for human methylmercury exposure and employed in risk assessment without considering possible sex-related differences in toxicokinetics of methylmercury. In an experimental study using male and female mice of three different strains, the validity of mercury in hair, blood and muscle as indicators of methylmercury exposure was evaluated. Significant sex-related differences in the toxicokinetics of methylmercury were observed in the mice and it is concluded that hair and blood levels of mercury are of questionable relevance as indicators of both body burden and target organ concentrations of mercury. However, blood concentrations might be used as an indicator of brain deposition and the correlation improves after corrections due to sex-related differences in toxicokinetics.
最近确立的参考区间表明，女性血液中的汞含量显著高于男性。血液和头发中的汞都被用作人体甲基汞暴露的生物标志物，并用于风险评估，而未考虑甲基汞毒代动力学中可能存在的性别差异。在一项使用三种不同品系的雄性和雌性小鼠的实验研究中，评估了头发、血液和肌肉中的汞作为甲基汞暴露指标的有效性。在小鼠中观察到甲基汞毒代动力学存在显著的性别差异，得出的结论是，头发和血液中的汞含量作为汞的身体负担和靶器官浓度指标的相关性存疑。然而，血液浓度可能用作脑沉积的指标，并且由于毒代动力学的性别差异进行校正后，相关性会提高。
