CHRONIC DISEASE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH MERCURY VAPOR EXPOSURE

目的：了解低水平汞蒸气暴露对健康可能产生的影响。初步分析表明，与不使用汞的正畸医生相比，普通牙医的肾脏疾病风险有所升高，但方法上的困难和数据的不一致意味着我们不得不重新进行分析。新的分析仍然留下了一个不一致的画面，我们正在把它写下来发表。对血压数据的初步分析表明，汞合金接触与血压之间存在不一致的关系，这种关系在某些年龄组中存在，但在其他年龄组中没有。最近的研究表明，产前甲基汞暴露与7岁时的血压之间存在关系，这使得这些发现更加有趣。我们正在把它们写下来出版。芭芭拉·戴维斯博士和丹·摩根博士根据我们之前的发现，接触汞蒸气的牙科助理的生育能力会降低，他们建立了一个只有鼻子的汞蒸气暴露室，在老鼠身上测试这一假设。我们发现汞对黄体和发情周期有微妙的影响，但这些不太可能解释人类的发现。我们假设在人类中看到的生殖影响可能反映了汞蒸气的神经毒性。我们刚刚完成了这方面的手稿，正在提交出版。

Aims: To understand the possible health impact of low level mercury vapor exposure. Accomplishments: Initial analyses suggest some elevations in renal disease risk among general dentists compared to orthodontists who do not use mercury but methodologic difficulties and inconsistencies in the data have meant that we have had to redo the analyses. The new analyses still leave an inconsistent picture which we are writing it up for publication .Initial analyses of the blood pressure data suggest an inconsistent relationship between amalgam exposure and blood pressure which is present for some age groups but not for others. Recent studies suggest a relationship between prenatal methyl mercury exposure and blood pressure at age 7 which makes these findings more interesting. We are writing them up for publication. Based on our previous finding of reduced fertility among dental assistants exposed to mercury vapor, Dr. Barbara Davis and Dr. Dan Morgan set up a nose-only mercury vapor exposure chamber to test the hypothesis in rats. We found that mercury had subtle effects on the corpus lutea and estrous cycling but these were unlikely to explain the human findings. We hypothesize that the reproductive effects seen in humans may reflect neurotoxicity of mercury vapor. We have just completed a manuscript on this and are submitting for publication.