Rutgers Enviro-Notes,October to December 2004

Fish is good for you and fish is bad for you. That is a simple and true statement…as far as it goes. Numerous articles, news stories and scholarly tracts can be found to support each end of that contradictory statement. In this issue of Rutgers Enviro-Notes we will depart from our normal format to focus on a single topic, fish. We will tap expertise at Rutgers to attempt to find some straight talk about why fish is good for you, why it might be bad for you and what choices you can make to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative of one of the world’s most important food sources. I wish to thank the core collaborators who made this issue possible; Karen Ensle, Family & Community Health Sciences Educator with Rutgers Cooperative Extension (RCE) of Union County, Gef Flimlin, RCE Marine Agent for Ocean, Monmouth and Atlantic Counties and Cara Muscio, RCE Marine Agent for Ocean, Monmouth and Atlantic Counties. - B. Barbour

Every state from Maine to Florida has issued a health advisory on the consumption of fish. Depending on the state the advisories can be for freshwater or saltwater fish, or both. They address commercially and recreationallycaught fish. Restrictions range from never eating certain species from certain locations to advising "no more than one meal per week" on the least harmful restricted species. EPA maintains a nice collection of all these advisories and more at http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/fish/ . New Jersey’s Advisory is more elaborate than most, distinguishing not only between the general population and high risk individuals (children and women of childbearing age), but also providing a table that lets you tailor your consumption to generate a lifetime cancer risk of 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 100,000. These numbers are eye-catching to some because when EPA sets tolerance limits on pesticide residue in foods they generally have aimed for a 1 in 1,000,000 lifetime risk of cancer.

So is your risk of getting cancer from these advisory fish 10 or 100 times greater than from pesticides residues in food? What does this really mean? What is your chance of getting cancer if you don’t eat any fish?

Dr. Mark Robson from the UMDNJ School of Public Health says the data for New Jersey is that one out of four of us (25%) will have cancer in our lives and one out of five (20%) will die of cancer, very sobering numbers. But placed against this background Dr. Robson goes on to explain that the incremental risk of consuming fish at the 1 in 10,000 cancer risk interval (for example 8 oz. stripped bass, caught off the Pinelands portion of the in the Atlantic Ocean off the NJ coast, once per month for the rest of your life) increases your lifetime cancer risk from 25% to 25.01%. He explained that another way to interpret the same statistic, "the increased risk is small when you take into account the background rate of 250,000 in 1,000,000. Then we really are looking at an increase to 250,100 in 1,000,000." Not a move in the right direction, but, perhaps, for some, an acceptable risk.

The concept of acceptable risk entails how we weigh potential harm versus potential benefit. For example, people might not swim in the ocean because they are afraid of being eaten by a shark. The risk of that occurring is so small that most people assume that risk because they love the ocean and swimming. Likewise, the articles that follow help lay out some options to help you assess the acceptable balance of risk and benefits of consuming various fish - B. Barbour and G. Flimlin

The American Heart Association recommends eating fish (particularly fatty fish) at least two times a week. Fish is a good source of protein and does not have the high saturated fat that fatty meat products do. Fatty fish like mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna and salmon are high in two kinds of omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Also, foods such as tofu and other forms of soybeans, canola, walnut and flaxseed, and their oils are recommended as they contain alpha-linolenic acid (LNA), which can become omega-3 fatty acid in the body. The extent of this modification is modest and controversial with more studies needed to show a cause-and-effect relationship between alpha-linolenic acid and heart disease. - K. Ensle

In 1996 the American Heart Association released its Science Advisory, "Fish Consumption, Fish Oil, Lipids and Coronary Heart Disease." Since then important new findings have been reported about the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids on cardiovascular disease. These include evidence from randomized, controlled clinical trials. New information has emerged about how omega-3 fatty acids affect heart function (including antiarrhythmic effects), hemodynamics (cardiac mechanics) and arterial endothelial function. These findings are outlined in our November 2002 Scientific Statement, "Fish Consumption, Fish Oil, Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Cardiovascular Disease." http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/106/21/2747

Omega-3 fatty acids reduce CVD risk factors are still being studied, however, research has shown that they:

A growing body of research suggests that omega-3 fatty acids may reduce cancer risk and help manage certain cancers. The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) recommends that American need to eat more omega 3 and fewer omega -6 fatty acids. Pursue this link if you would like to learn more about how omega-3’s work -K. Ensle

In the simplest terms, the major fish pollutants are two, mercury and organic chemicals. The major organic chemicals are PCBs and dioxin with other assorted contaminants ususally found frorm local sources. Mercury is the most widespread and accumulates in the fish flesh. Most of the organic chemicals accumulate in the fish fat (oil).

John Reinfelder of the Rutgers Department of Environmental Sciences at Cook College explains, "From my point of view, Hg (monomethylmercury, to be exact) is the most important toxic substance in freshwater and saltwater fish. Monomethylmercury biomagnifies in fish and can cross the blood-brain barrier leading to neurological damage, particularly in developing fetuses and children."

Top 10 fish and shellfish consumed in the United States	Mean mercury level in parts per million (ppm)	Omega-3 fatty acids (grams per 3-oz. serving)
Canned tuna (light)	0.12	0.26–0.73
Shrimp	ND*	0.27
Pollock	0.06	0.46
Salmon (fresh,frozen)	0.01	0.68–1.83
Cod	0.11	0.13–0.24
Catfish	0.05	0.15–0.20
Clams	ND*	0.24
Flounder or sole	0.05	0.43
Crabs	0.06	0.34–0.40
Scallops	0.05	0.17
		Table -K. Ensle

The EPA states that the largest single source of human-caused emissions in the US is coal-fired power plants. About half of the mercury deposited in the US is from natural sources such as volcanoes and international sources such as coal use in Asia.

Dr. Reinfelder further explains that, "deposited Hg is methylated in anoxic sediments primarily by sulfate-reducing bacteria. MeHg (methylmercury) then diffuses into overlying waters, is accumulated by bacteria and phytoplankton and transferred up the food web. Since MeHg is retained by animals, in contrast to inorganic Hg which is eliminated, its concentration increases at each trophic level such that top predators (swordfish, shark, tuna) have the highest MeHg levels."

Reinfelder’s colleague Lisa Totten, also a professor in the Cook College Department of Environmental Sciences adds, "all three of these contaminants can have ‘"industrial"’ or point sources as well as non-point sources such as stormwater and the atmosphere." Even though PCB s have been banned for nearly 30 years, there is still plenty circulating in the system. The major source of PCBs in the lower Hudson River is the contamination from the GE plants in the Upper Hudson River. The most notorious dioxin source is in the Passaic River near the old Diamond Shamrock plant. In other parts of the state, for example such as in the Pinelands, the atmosphere is the biggest source of mercury, PCBs, and dioxins." Together Reinfelder and Totten run the New Jersey Atmospheric Deposition Network to get a handle on the atmospheric transport of these chemicals.

Dr. Judith S. Weis of the Dept. of Biological Sciences at Rutgers University, Newark, explains that "dioxins can also enter aquatic food chains from the atmosphere, where they come from various sources including combustion processes."

There is a dioxin Superfund site on the Passaic River in Newark, the result of a former herbicide manufacturing site that produced dioxins as an accidental by-product of the herbicides they were making. The dioxin has accumulated to levels of concern in local blue crabs as well as fish.

She notes, "There may be other contaminants of concern that have not been studied as much and are not generally analyzed for because we are just learning about them. These include the flame retardant polybrominated diphenyl ethers that act as endocrine disruptors at extremely low levels. There are numerous other chemicals that have been identified as endocrine disruptors that may also be posing a risk, but scientists are just beginning to study and learn about them." -B. Barbour

In order to make educated decisions about your seafood eating habits, it is helpful to understand the origins of your dinner. The amount of risk you are potentially exposed to not only depends on harvesting location, but also the specific characteristics of the fish or shellfish you are eating. Knowing a bit of the science of the sea can help you understand what advisories are saying, and better assess the risks and the benefits of eating seafood. - C. Muscio

All living things depend on energy for survival. Energy is distributed from the sun, and organisms (primary producers) convert this sunlight into energy. Many people are familiar with the idea of a food chain – sun makes grass grow, cows eat grass, and people eat beef or drink milk. In reality, there are many other organisms involved in the journey from sunlight to a hamburger, and the relationships are not always direct. A food web is a more complete way of looking at the pathways of energy– it takes into account all of the organisms involved in energy transfer in an ecosystem, and how they interact. Food webs account for the fact that an organism may feed on many different types of food, depending on its age, the season, and availability. These webs can be quite complicated, especially in aquatic environments. The University of Minnesota has posted a nice example of a fairly complete aquatic foodchain at their "Water on the Web" site.

For ease of understanding, we will look at a simplified aquatic food chain. In our simple food chain, (Tip: press the red and green arrows for animation)

microscopic algae capture sunlight and photosynthesize. The algae are eaten by microscopic zooplankton, which are in turn eaten by small filter-feeding fish (menhaden), which are in turn consumed by larger fish, say striped bass. Then, the striped bass is caught by a lucky angler, who brings it home for dinner.

There are five steps in this chain, which makes the angler the 4^th level consumer. Many ecologists say only 10% of this energy gets transferred up a food chain at each step. With every additional step in the food chain, less energy makes it up to the top consumer. In addition, organisms farther up the food chain are generally larger. This means that the farther up the food chain an organism is, the more it has to eat to survive. So it theoretically takes 10,000 pounds of phytoplankton to sustain 1,000 pounds of zooplankton to feed 100 pounds of menhaden. This menhaden would feed 10 pounds of striped bass, yielding our lucky angler 1 pound of nourishment from the catch. It turns out, the opposite is true of organic chemical concentrations in food chains.

Pollutants like PCBs and dioxin are deposited in the water. Tiny molecules are sucked into cells by plants and algae and scooped up with sediments by bottom feeders. These synthetic compounds don’t dissolve in water very well, but they are very soluble in fats and oils. Small concentrations of compounds build up over time in the oils of algae and plants, a process known as bioaccumulation. As these organisms are consumed by other organisms, biological magnification occurs – at each level of the food chain, there is a higher concentration of chemicals in the tissues of the organism. This is partly because larger animals need to eat more to survive, so the toxins build up over time, and are stored in fatty tissues. Mercury and other metals also quickly find their way to the sediments of a water body. Although it bioaccumulates and biomagnifies in a similar manner, mercury builds up through an entire organism, not just the fatty tissues. This difference illustrates how ecological information is important in choosing the best course of action.

Some smaller organisms are not significantly harmed by the low-level concentrations built up in their tissues. Toxicity increases up the food chain, and higher order predators often exhibit serious health effects. Biological magnification is particularly a problem when people are higher order consumers in the food web. Many aquatic food chains have five or six levels, which magnifies any contaminants present. Let’s look at our simple food chain again, adding a low-level organic chemical concentration in the water. {FIG} Click on the red button in the figure to begin this process. This diagram is only representative, but you can see the chemical concentrations increasing up the food chain. The rate of biomagnification depends on many variables, but by the time the angler eats the fish, the concentration of PCBs is far greater than it was in the actual water the fish lived in.

The concepts of biological magnification and food webs are crucial to understanding what steps you can take to lower your risk, while still enjoying seafood.

Eating a variety of different seafood is the first key. Eat fish and shellfish from different habitats, and from different steps on the food chain. The older, larger, and higher on the food chain your particular dinner is, the more chemical contaminants it may have accumulated in its lifetime. Smaller (but still legal) organisms and those that are only 1st or 2nd level consumers are likely to have lower levels of organic chemicals. Federal and State governments issue seafood advisories to alert the public to species of concern in certain waters. These advisories are suggestions, calculated through risk management, of safe levels of consumption for the general public and special population segments. -C. Muscio

Here is something that those in youth education may find helpful in improving understanding of the food chain and related issues:

This item contributed by Dr. Stan Cajigas, retired professor of Food Science at Cook College.
"New Studies Show PCB Levels In Farmed Salmon Comparable to Wild: Here's the New Data" is the title of an October 21 News Release issued by the Salmon of the Americas (SOTA) a trade association representing " ... salmon-producing companies in Canada, Chile and the United States ..." - The news release states in part " ... The latest round of PCB monitoring carried out by Salmon of the Americas (SOTA) show levels of PCBs in farmed salmon at about the same levels as those from wild Alaska Chinook and sockeye salmon. This should put to rest any fears that arose from the notorious Hites study that appeared in the journal Science in January 2004 proclaiming farmed salmon to have higher levels of PCBs than their wild cousins. The current SOTA testing found PCB levels in farmed salmon to be 11.5 ppb. These levels are virtually identical to those from the most recent study done by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC), which found PCB levels in wild sockeye and Chinook to be 10 ppb and 8.2 ppb, respectively ... The benefits of salmon far outweigh the risks. Salmon is one of the best sources of omega-3 fatty acids, which have been shown to stave off heart attacks, minimize symptoms of arthritis, help control blood glucose levels and reduce the incidence of Alzheimer's ..." - The complete SOTA News Release is posted at http://www.salmonoftheamericas.com/topic_10_04_pcbsalmon.html
- The August 31 News Release issued by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, titled "Good News: More evidence that Alaska fish are healthy to eat" is posted at http://www.state.ak.us/dec/press_releases/2004/fish_monitoring_program_analysis_of_organic_contaminants.pdf -
Questions may be directed to SOTA by e-mail at info@salmonoftheamericas.com and to Bob Gerlach at the Alaska DEC at (907) 269-7635.

Growing up in a strict Catholic family in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Fridays were always meat free. That meant that my brown lunch bag contained either PB&J, tuna, egg salad, or maybe a sardine sandwich. All were perfectly acceptable. Hunger is a good sauce for a growing boy, and the lunch offering was gone before I really questioned whether sardines were something that I really liked, or were good for me.

That evening, dinner would typically be fishy, but the choices at that time were pretty slim. My mom would stop at the Paterson Fish Market and get usually one of three things, cod, bluefish, or scallops, the last being my Dad’s favorite. Tuna casserole (with peas, thank you) was the change-up. Being the youngest of 12, and having older siblings that cooked, my mother didn’t really learn to cook until she got married. She figured the longer something cooked, the better. "What do you mean the fish is dry? Look at all the liquid in the pan!" "Where do you think it came from Mom?" Fortunately, I liked fish, it was the stewed tomatoes sidedish that caused me to fear Friday dinners.

Down the shore during the summer, we would visit the Belford Co-op or Cliff’s Seafood on Route 36 each week. But the offerings were only supplemented by a couple other species like fluke, whiting and maybe weakfish. Crabs were not an option and lobster was a once-a-summer feast.

But I was always told that fish was "brainfood" and that if I knew what was good for me (and I didn’t want to spend the rest of eternity in hell), I’d keep seafood as part of my diet. Fair enough, good taste, good for the mind, and no fire and damnation. I can deal with that.

As time marched on, the world shrank, boats went further offshore, fish farming grew, airplanes carried seafood around the world, distribution routes increased and the possibilities for getting different kinds of seafood has increased tremendously. Supermarket chains that had abandoned fresh seafood until the resurgence in the mid-80s, brought new items for us to try: catfish, fresh tuna, blacktip shark, tilefish, croaker, mahogany clams, hybrid striped bass, arctic char, monkfish, hake, wild salmon, cultured salmon, tilapia, yellowtail flounder, squid, swordfish, green lipped mussels, grouper, perch, and many more over the course of the year. And I know they all don’t come from NJ. The frozen selections increased too: clams from Vietnam, mussels from Prince Edward Island, shrimp from Malaysia, India, Thailand, and Central America, lobster tails from South Africa, and oysters from Europe.

Lately, the seafood that we eat has come under very close scrutiny. Aside from the fact that the United States has the safest and most secure food resources of any country in the world, laboratory analysis equipment has become so precise that more infinitesimal amounts of chemicals that may impact our health can be detected, and warnings about consumption of some fish are being promulgated by both state and federal agencies. This has hit the seafood industry in the same spot that nitrites hit bacon processors in the ‘70s and the pesticide Alar scared some folks from eating apples in the early 1990s. But there is a difference here.

Recent research has examined both the down side of seafood consumption with relation to certain compounds but at the same time, the "brainfood" reason for fish consumption has been joined with the stories of the other beneficial aspects. People have been scared off from eating any seafood because limits have been suggested on some select species. But that is like not driving any car because one or two have bad rollover characteristics! Fortunately, educated seafood lovers have not missed a step. The selection of species that we can eat is extremely varied and we could literally eat a different kind of fish or seafood every night for a month, and not eat the same thing twice.

New information points to the benefits of Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids found in oily seafood; benefits that show that those oils help the heart and the body. Fish, especially fatty fish, reduce the risk of a first heart attack, reduce the risk of stroke, reduce the potential for atherosclerosis, improve vascular function, reduce inflammation, improve blood lipids, reduces the risk of type-2 diabetes, and more. For those reasons (and not just because you might wind up in hell if you didn’t eat it on Friday), fish and seafood ought to be part of everyone’s diet.

But who says so? The American Heart Association, for one, does, as does the Institute of Health, the World Health Organization, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and many countries around the world. The US Food and Drug Administration does too. In fact, the FDA suggests that people eat up to two 6 oz. portions of fish or seafood a week. When that is added up, it makes about 40 pounds per year. The latest statistics show that Americans, on average, only consume about 16 pounds per year. So maybe the government scientists know something that we should! And remember, this is the same organization that also publishes consumption advisories against eating some fish and seafood because of potential contamination. Their message is clear. Eat seafood but watch which ones.

This edition of the Enviro-Notes is designed to address Seafood: Assessing the Benefits and Risks. This online newsletter marks the beginning of a focused Rutgers Cooperative Extension program to educate consumers about seafood and how it can be a positive addition to all peoples’ diets. Following the publication of this Enviro-Notes a web-page using this as a base will be developed and placed on the Rutgers Cooperative Extension web-site. So read on and eat up! -G. Flimlin

Now available on the web @ www.rce.rutgers.edu are the following info sheet
updates:

FS529 - "Point/Nonpoint Source Water Quality Trading Program for New
Jersey", authored by Dr. Christopher C, Obropta, Extension Specialist in
Water Resources, and Gregory Rusciano, Graduate Assistant in Bioresource
Engineering. This is a four page fact sheet.

FS534 - "Recommendations for the Preparation and Storage of Calabaza",
authored by Dr. Donald W. Schaffner, Extension Specialist in Food Science
and Sarah Smith- Simpson, Graduate Student in Food Science. This is a two
page fact sheet.

FS039 - "How to Hire a Landscape Maintenance Professional", authored by
Nicholas Polanin, Somerset County Agricultural Agent, William T. Hlubik,
Middlesex County Agricultural Agent, and Martha Maletta, Hunterdon County
Horticultural Consultant. This is a two page fact sheet.

FS003 - "Gardening Activities for Youth", authored by James Nichnadowicz,
Union County 4-H Agent, and Dr. Lydia B. Blalock, Extension Specialist in Youth
Development. This is a four page fact sheet.

FS528 - "Management Recommendations on Cold Hardiness and De-Hardiness for
Container-Grown Nursery Crops", authored by Dr. Gladis Zinati, Extension
Specialist in Nursery Management. This is a four page fact sheet.

Rutgers Enviro-Notes

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