Hair and Nail Matrices in Mercury Bio-monitoring for Public Hygiene, a comparative study

Mercury is the most toxic element in the environment and human communities are mainly exposing with its toxic effects via marine foods and amalgam fillings. Efficiency comparison of non-invasive matrices (Hair and Nails) for Hg exposure in mercury monitoring programs was the research head.

Head hairs as well as finger and toenails were obtained from 40 students of TarbiatModares University. Total mercury determination was done by Advanced Mercury Analyzer 254, LECO (USA). The results were reported as Mean(SE) ng g-dw.        

Occipital and frontal hairs, finger and toenails had 644(48), 662(48), 565(70) and 375(39) ng g-dw, respectively. Head hairs showed the least Coefficient of variation meanwhile hand nails showed the most. A significant positive correlation among whole bio-monitors barring fingernails were observed. Although, Total Hg level was the least in toenail matrix, but its mercury concentration showed a significant positive correlation with all other matrices and had the median Coefficient of variation, comparing with hairs and fingernails.

According to the study results, toenail beside of scalp hairs were more reliable in mercury bio-monitoring. Total mercury in fingernail is not an approvable biomarker to monitor the public hygiene.