Fish can be an excellent part of a healthy diet, providing important nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, which may reduce the risk of diseases like cancer, Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular disease and dementia, age-related macular degeneration (AMD), rheumatoid arthritis, and others. However, there are some fish you should never eat. Unfortunately, due to human industrial activities such as coal-fired electricity generation, smelting, and waste incineration, large amounts of mercury end up in our waters and then in the fish that swim in them. When this mercury enters the marine food chain, it "bioaccumulates."
This means that as smaller fish are eaten by progressively larger fish, the mercury concentration at each level increases. Consuming too much mercury can be harmful to your health and lead to mercury poisoning. For this reason, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have issued guidelines on safe human mercury levels, and the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) offers suggestions on fish that should not be eaten.
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