Mercury is a toxic metal that can be disseminated into the environment from both natural and anthropogenic sources. Human exposure to the metal stems mainly from food, and more particularly from the consumption of fish and other seafoods. Examining dietary exposure and measuring mercury levels in body tissues are two ways of estimating exposure to mercury. In this study, we utilized a modelling system consisting of three linear toxicokinetic models for describing the fate of methyl mercury, inorganic mercury, and metallic mercury in the body, in order to estimate daily intake of mercury as measured through total mercury concentrations in the blood. We then compared the results stemming from our modelling system to those of the detailed semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) of the Norwegian Fish and Game (NFG) Study, a project that focused on dietary mercury exposure.

The results indicate that toxicokinetic modelling based on blood levels gave higher daily intake values of mercury compared to those of the FFQ. Furthermore, the former had a wider range of estimates than the latter. The properties of the toxicokinetic model or limitations in the dietary exposure assessment could be posited as reasons for the differences between the respective methods. Moreover, the results may have been influenced by sources of mercury exposure that cannot be described as dietary, such as amalgam fillings.

汞是一种有毒金属，可以从自然和人为来源传播到环境中。人类对金属的暴露主要来自食物，尤其是鱼类和其他海产品的消费。检查饮食摄入量和测量人体组织中的汞含量是估算汞摄入量的两种方法。在这项研究中，我们利用由三个线性毒物动力学模型组成的建模系统来描述体内甲基汞，无机汞和金属汞的去向，以便估算通过血液中总汞浓度测得的每日汞摄入量。然后，我们将来自我们的建模系统的结果与挪威鱼类和野味（NFG）研究中详细的半定量食物频率问卷（FFQ）的结果进行了比较，

结果表明，与FFQ相比，基于血液水平的毒物动力学模型得出的每日汞摄入量更高。此外，前者的估计范围比后者大。毒物动力学模型的特性或饮食接触评估的局限性可以被认为是各自方法之间差异的原因。此外，结果可能受到汞暴露源的影响，汞暴露源不能被描述为饮食中的汞，例如汞合金馅料。