Lead and mercury in food

[Stumpy2]

Despite my fears for how this thread may evolve based on past discussions about lead shot and bullet restrictions I think the following articles are worth bringing to the debate. First a food standards agency paper on lead exposure in pregnancy:

COT statement on the potential risks from lead in the maternal diet: Lay summary | Committee on Toxicity

cot.food.gov.uk

And an article about mercury content in fish, particularly tinned tuna:

Should we be worried about mercury in tinned tuna?

How much tuna is safe to eat and should we be concerned about eating other types of fish?

www.bbc.co.uk

I would hazard a guess that the general population of the country eats more tonnes of tuna than game meat per annum?

Discuss…

(Puts on tin hat)

 

[MarinePMI]

Hmmm...seem to recall the whole "mercury in tuna" thing was debunked.

Or rather, it was unpacked, and explained that the naturally occurring levels of selenium in the tuna chelated the mercury, rendering it to harmless levels for humans.

Makes you wonder who paid for the studies, doesn't it? The ones in the US were paid by the pork producers' lobbyist firms...no hidden agenda there, eh?

 

[Heym SR20]

Have a read of how lead affects P53 and p53’s role in the suppression of tumorous cells in the body.

 

[NoIDeer]

Have a read of how lead affects P53 and p53’s role in the suppression of tumorous cells in the body.

Thanks for that, very interesting. Even more interesting is copper has a similar action?

 

[Smellydog]

 

[moeggesit]

High levels… there isn’t high levels of any metal introduced by shooting any type of bullets unless you insist on eating only the metal.

View attachment 408524

 

[weblyish]

High levels… there isn’t high levels of any metal introduced by shooting any type of bullets unless you insist on eating only the metal.

Completely agree
Lead from shooting game is completely different to heavy metals in predatory fish etc

In the fish it builds up throughout the flesh due to repeated ingestion

In shot game it would be highly localised to the actual bullet track.

I guess if you sell on the main cuts but salvage every scrap bit of meat from the shot area for your own table you might get a decent amount over time but it seems unlikely

 

[Liveonce]

interesting reading thank you, still however you see pregnant women smoking.

 

[Heym SR20]

Completely agree
Lead from shooting game is completely different to heavy metals in predatory fish etc

In the fish it builds up throughout the flesh due to repeated ingestion

In shot game it would be highly localised to the actual bullet track.

I guess if you sell on the main cuts but salvage every scrap bit of meat from the shot area for your own table you might get a decent amount over time but it seems unlikely

Yup lead builds up over time. Its not the large bits that cause problems. Its the very small fragments from lead bullets that you cannot see.

This article from 2009 gives a good summary. And you can go and read all the background papers.

Wild Meat Raises Lead Exposure

Tests by the CDC show that eating venison and other game can raise the amounts of lead in human bodies by 50 percent

www.scientificamerican.com

Then in 2020 a paper was published in the American Journal of Haematology from work MD Anderson’s Cancer Clinic in Houston showing a high correlation between heavy metals, in particular lead, and Acute Myeloid Leukaemia

A heavy metal baseline score predicts outcome in acute myeloid leukemia - PubMed

Despite abundant epidemiological data linking metals to leukemia and other cancers, baseline values of toxic and essential metals in patients with leukemia and the clinical impact of these metals remain unknown. Thus, we sought to quantify metal values in untreated patients with acute myeloid...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

This has spawned lots of further work. Firstly looking at the method of action of lead and other heavy metals within the body that has shown how it interferes with p53 protein’s to mop up tumerous cells and their proteins. Lead interferes with p53’s ability to unfold.

This has to a team of researcher's announcing in early 2024 that they secured orphan drug status for a noval technology that removes the heavy metals, in particular lead, that dramatically improves the survival outcomes of patients with a diagnosis of AML. They are also looking at other diseases such as small cell lung cancer and infectious disease.

The company that has brought these technologies to the market was a client of mine.

 

[Heym SR20]

Thanks for that, very interesting. Even more interesting is copper has a similar action?

The fundamental difference between a lead bullet and copper bullet is how they work once they hit an animal.

A lead bullet fragments, peels back, smears or whatever sending a cloud of lead particles into the body of the deer, in particular into the heart and lungs. Depending on the bullet construction and what bones the the bullet hits this will vary from the whole bullet breaking up (a varmint bullet) to 60 or 70% exiting (a dual core or bonded bullet.

There are some non toxic cored bullets - using tin, zinc, tungsten, bismuth etc instead of lead and these work in same way, leaving lots of fragments behind.

By contrast a monolithic copper bullet stays in one piece. They don’t fragment into lots of little bits, but usually exit retaining 99% of their weight, so contamination is minimal.

First action on shooting a deer is to gralloch it and usually the gralloch is left in the field. Mostly grallochs are consumed by carrion eaters which have beaks or jaws. They are unable to pick out all the lead fragments so they are ingested. Recent studies show a high proportion of dead raptors have high levels of lead in their blood.

Coming back to the deer carcass, the challenge comes to the butchering. With a lead shot beast the fragments are widespread and in most cases too small to be seen by human eye. So where do you stop. Just cut away the blood shot meat or dispose of the whole front end and loins. In commercial butchering operations there is a huge stress between maximising meat recovery in as short a time as possible with most employees on cutting floor being a bit above minimum wage, versus what is uncontaminated.

With a copper bullet - just cut away the hole, and you have a very high degree of confidence on minimal contamination.

Using a copper bullet does not eliminate potential contamination, but drastically reduces it.

In terms of the venison market we are now seeing initiatives with venison being bought by schools etc. Given the now well understood dangers of lead exposure to developing brains in young children, this can only happen if there is high degree of confidence that exposure to harmful contaminants is minimal.

Plenty of SD members may disagree with the science that lead in any quantity is harmful. But the medical world views any form of lead ingestion is harmful.

 

[Smellydog]

So errr was does tobacco products do?

 

[NoIDeer]

The fundamental difference between a lead bullet and copper bullet is how they work once they hit an animal.

A lead bullet fragments, peels back, smears or whatever sending a cloud of lead particles into the body of the deer, in particular into the heart and lungs. Depending on the bullet construction and what bones the the bullet hits this will vary from the whole bullet breaking up (a varmint bullet) to 60 or 70% exiting (a dual core or bonded bullet.

There are some non toxic cored bullets - using tin, zinc, tungsten, bismuth etc instead of lead and these work in same way, leaving lots of fragments behind.

By contrast a monolithic copper bullet stays in one piece. They don’t fragment into lots of little bits, but usually exit retaining 99% of their weight, so contamination is minimal.

First action on shooting a deer is to gralloch it and usually the gralloch is left in the field. Mostly grallochs are consumed by carrion eaters which have beaks or jaws. They are unable to pick out all the lead fragments so they are ingested. Recent studies show a high proportion of dead raptors have high levels of lead in their blood.

Coming back to the deer carcass, the challenge comes to the butchering. With a lead shot beast the fragments are widespread and in most cases too small to be seen by human eye. So where do you stop. Just cut away the blood shot meat or dispose of the whole front end and loins. In commercial butchering operations there is a huge stress between maximising meat recovery in as short a time as possible with most employees on cutting floor being a bit above minimum wage, versus what is uncontaminated.

With a copper bullet - just cut away the hole, and you have a very high degree of confidence on minimal contamination.

Using a copper bullet does not eliminate potential contamination, but drastically reduces it.

In terms of the venison market we are now seeing initiatives with venison being bought by schools etc. Given the now well understood dangers of lead exposure to developing brains in young children, this can only happen if there is high degree of confidence that exposure to harmful contaminants is minimal.

Plenty of SD members may disagree with the science that lead in any quantity is harmful. But the medical world views any form of lead ingestion is harmful.

All of the above has been written many times and very likely true, I believe it.

What I don't see is hospitals full of people undertaking chelation therapy to remove all this missing lead.

There are rules/laws in place to protect wildlife affected by lead ingestion.

Every time I pull the trigger with a copper bullet in the chamber I haven't got a clue where that lump of copper has ended up which I do find worrying. I would love to shoot non toxic.

The science you presented in the post I responded by noting that copper works in a similar way is very interesting and worrying if bullet manufacturers are trying to emulate the fragmentation you get with lead.

 

[timbrayford]

Despite my fears for how this thread may evolve based on past discussions about lead shot and bullet restrictions I think the following articles are worth bringing to the debate. First a food standards agency paper on lead exposure in pregnancy:

COT statement on the potential risks from lead in the maternal diet: Lay summary | Committee on Toxicity

cot.food.gov.uk

And an article about mercury content in fish, particularly tinned tuna:

Should we be worried about mercury in tinned tuna?

How much tuna is safe to eat and should we be concerned about eating other types of fish?

www.bbc.co.uk

I would hazard a guess that the general population of the country eats more tonnes of tuna than game meat per annum?

Discuss…

(Puts on tin hat)

What about having a mouthful of mercuric amalgam fillings, surely a massive health scandal there far more worthy of HSE investigation? Hang on, its the NHS who will be held responsible, no wonder that the issue has been swept under the governmental carpet!

 

[Heym SR20]

All of the above has been written many times and very likely true, I believe it.

What I don't see is hospitals full of people undertaking chelation therapy to remove all this missing lead.

There are rules/laws in place to protect wildlife affected by lead ingestion.

Every time I pull the trigger with a copper bullet in the chamber I haven't got a clue where that lump of copper has ended up which I do find worrying. I would love to shoot non toxic.

The science you presented in the post I responded by noting that copper works in a similar way is very interesting and worrying if bullet manufacturers are trying to emulate the fragmentation you get with lead.

The reason why Hospitals are not full of patients having lead removed as part of cancer treatment is two fold

1) original chelation was pretty nasty in its own right. It is used for acute metal poisoning. There was quite a bit of work done in the 50’s and 60’s on chelation for cancer treatment. But then along came chemotherapy which offered much better profits for the drug companies.

2) the new treatments only received FDA approval for use last year in the US and only as an orphan drug for use in terminal secondary leukaemia. Results so far are very positive with a high proportion of patients alive and well many months after treatment. Life expectancy in secondary leukaemia is measured in days or a few weeks.

They are building the program for clinical trials in Europe, and now that the EMA is in Amsterdam these will be happening in the Benelux region.

Unfortunately we won’t benefit in the UK any time soon as cost of clinical trials in the UK is the same as mainland Europe, but we have one customer - the NHS, and they are very slow to adopt.

The other real benefit is the cost is low compared to chemotherapy. We are talking about 1/10 of the cost.

As to worrying about where the copper bullet ends up. Copper bullets penetrate in a straight line. I have recovered a number in the ground behind where the animal was standing. They are generally not very deep, implying that have pretty used up all the energy in the animal. If you shoot a rifle choice of backstop is paramount. If you are worrying about where the bullet ends up you are you shooting without a good backdrop?

Yes I do agree that fragmenting non toxic designs are not good. As to not poisoning wildlife with lead contaminated grallochs etc, the alternive is to recover the animal fully entact, gralloch in the larder and dispose of the remains as contaminated waste. If you do gralloch in the field you then need to carry it out separately. Much easier to use a non contaminating bullet.

 

[Heym SR20]

What about having a mouthful of mercuric amalgam fillings, surely a massive health scandal there far more worthy of HSE investigation? Hang on, its the NHS who will be held responsible, no wonder that the issue has been swept under the governmental carpet!

Why do you think they no longer use mercuric amalgam fillings?

Why do we no longer use lead paint?

Why do we no longer use lead in solders, water pipes, petrol etc etc?

 

[Ratel]

I think I must be amazing and one of the world's biggest consumers of lead. Amazing that I have survived to be an octogenarian.
I started my lead consumption by licking the paint off my cot and enjoying.it, all our water came through lead pipes (still does). For a number of years eating rabbits and pigeons shot with lead four or five times a week. At school we sucked lead pencils and I regularly had my lead toy soldiers in my mouth, commercially bought and cast by my father.
I then got to shooting everything myself and for nearly seventy years I have eaten mostly venison, rabbits and game, all shot with lead.
Could one of the anti lead experts enlighten me as to why I ain't dead of lead poisoning.

 

[Dunwaters]

So errr was does tobacco products do?

“We couldn’t find a user who had survived long enough to derive a meaningful result”?

What did you think of the correlation between lead ingestion and reduced intelligence?

 

[Heym SR20]

All of the above has been written many times and very likely true, I believe it.

What I don't see is hospitals full of people undertaking chelation therapy to remove all this missing lead.

There are rules/laws in place to protect wildlife affected by lead ingestion.

Every time I pull the trigger with a copper bullet in the chamber I haven't got a clue where that lump of copper has ended up which I do find worrying. I would love to shoot non toxic.

The science you presented in the post I responded by noting that copper works in a similar way is very interesting and worrying if bullet manufacturers are trying to emulate the fragmentation you get with lead.

And reaction to Copper. If you recall your O level chemistry lead is much more reactive material than copper especially to things like acids.

Stomach acids are really pretty strong acid - similar ph to the acid in a lead acid car battery. The reactivity of lead to acids is indeed why its used in batteries.

When lead fragments are ingested and taken into the stomach they will dissolve in stomach acids and then will be adsorbed through the gut walls as lead salts. The smaller the particle the greater surface area compared to mass.

In man a protein rich meal will be in your stomach for a few hours before transferring into the intestines and will pass out 24 to 48 hours later.

Copper fragments will also dissolve but at a very much slower rate, so the amount adsorbed will be very much less.

 

[Ratel]

“We couldn’t find a user who had survived long enough to derive a meaningful result”?

What did you think of the correlation between lead ingestion and reduced intelligence?

I'm free.

 

[Liveonce]

I am no chemist but AI says

Yes, some forms of copper can dissolve in the stomach due to the acidic environment, allowing for partial absorption of copper from food in the stomach, although the majority of copper absorption happens in the small intestine, particularly in the duodenum and ileum.

Key points about copper and stomach acid:

• Solubility depends on form:
  Not all forms of copper are equally soluble in stomach acid; some may be poorly absorbed due to their chemical structure.
  
  
• Absorption site:
  While some copper can dissolve in the stomach, the primary absorption site for dietary copper is the small intestine.
  
  
• Binding factors:
  Food components can bind to copper, affecting its availability for absorption.