Marine diet and tobacco exposure affects mercury concentrations in pregnant women (I) from Baja California Sur, Mexico

We have read with great interest the article by Gaxiola-Robles t al. entitled “Marine diet and tobacco exposure affects mercury oncentrations in pregnant women (I) from Baja California Sur, exico” that is published in the Toxicol. Rep. (2014), http://dx. oi.org/10.1016/j.toxrep.2014.10.005 [1]. Gaxiola-Robles et al. in heir article investigated the possible relationships among multiple otential sources of exposure and other factors related to total merury concentration [THg] in hair samples of pregnant women in the renatal period. They found significant association between [THg] nd fish intake, BMI and tobacco exposure. In research projects, gnoring confounding factors can lead to unreliable and invalid esults. According to WHO, due to growing electricity demand uring the past decades, environmental exposure to man-made lectromagnetic fields (EMFs) has drastically increased. Now, as result of modern life and the growing need for generation and ransmission of electricity as well as development of new telecomunications methods and devices, people are exposed to a complex ix of weak EMFs both at home and at work. We have previously shown accelerated release of mercury from ental amalgam fillings after exposure to various sources of EMFs uch as mobile phones and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) [3,4]. he similar findings have been reported in microleakage studies of ental amalgam restorations following MRI [5,6]. Furthermore, the esults of investigations on the exposure to X-ray as a part of the lectromagnetic spectrum have confirmed our results [2]. In spite of hese findings, Gaxiola-Robles et al. did not control the exposure to idely used sources of EMFs (e.g., Wi-Fi, mobile base stations, and ordless phones) in their study. In this light, we believe that ignorng this major confounding factor that easily affects the mercury oncentration, has significantly affected the accuracy of the results. t is worth mentioning, although the level of mercury released from malgam restorations following exposure to EMF sources is not sually sufficient for causing toxicity, it can be considered as a ignificant health risk in specific subpopulations such as pregnant omen.