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A TIME magazine article highlights new research showing low levels of vitamin D duringpregnancy are associated with greater child body fat at age 6.Reporter Alexandra Sifferlin should not have included swordfish atthe top of the list of foods that are natural sources of vitamin Dfor pregnant women. Swordfish contain high levels of methylmercury. Pregnant women– who are the article's target audience – should noteat the fish to avoid exposure to the toxic substance. Prenatal andearly childhood methylmercury exposure is associated with impairednervous system development. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , "harmful effects [of methylmercury] that may be passed fromthe mother to the developing fetus include brain damage, mentalretardation, lack of coordination, blindness, seizures, and aninability to speak." The warnings are not new. In 2004, a joint statement about mercuryin fish and shellfish was released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency . The advisory explicitly told women who are or may becomepregnant, nursing mothers and young children not to eat specieswith high levels of methylmercury, including swordfish, shark, kingmackerel and tilefish. Instead, these groups should eat fish withlower levels, such as shrimp, salmon, pollock and catfish. Thesefish varieties are also good sources of high-quality protein andother essential nutrients The article provides a link to a U.S. National Institutes of Healthvitamin D fact sheet, which contains important and usefulinformation about the nutrient"s role in health, recommendeddietary allowance and a list of 13 food sources. The list covers avariety of foods from fortified dairy and cereal products to cannedtuna, sockeye salmon, and swordfish. While all of these productsmay be good sources of vitamin D, they are not all appropriatefoods for Sifferlin"s target audience. Swordfish, inparticular, was an unfortunate food to single out. This TIME article should have put information about vitamin D in acontext relevant to women of reproductive age. The role of prenatalhealth effects of vitamin D is still under investigation but theprenatal health effects of methylmercury are well established. Inshort, pregnant women should not be told to eat swordfish. Otherfish with both a natural source of vitamin D and lower mercurycontent could have been highlighted instead. The above work by Environmental Health News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 UnportedLicense . Based on a work at . We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Structural Steel Fabrications Manufacturer , China Aircraft Hangar Buildings for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Industrial Steel Buildings.
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