Quantitative risk-benefit assessment of Portuguese fish and other seafood species consumption scenarios

Portugal has high fish/seafood consumption, which may have both risks and benefits. This study aims to quantify the net health impact of hypothetical scenarios of fish/seafood consumption in the Portuguese population using a risk-benefit assessment methodology. Consumption data from the National Food, Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey 2015-2016 (n 5811) were used to estimate the mean exposure to methylmercury and EPA + DHA in the current and the alternative scenarios considered. Alternative scenarios (alt) were modelled using probabilistic approaches to reflect substitutions from the current consumption in the type of fish/seafood (alt1: excluding predatory fishes; alt2: including only methylmercury low-level fishes) or in the frequency of weekly fish/seafood consumption (alt3 to alt6: 1, 3, 5 or 7 times a week, replacing fish/seafood meals with meat or others). The overall health impact of these scenarios was quantified using disability-adjusted life years (DALY). In the Portuguese population, about 11 450 DALY could be prevented each year if the fish/seafood consumption increased to a daily basis. However, such a scenario would result in 1398 extra DALY considering the consumption by pregnant women and the respective risk on fetal neurodevelopment. Our findings support a recommendation to increase fish/seafood consumption up to 7 times/week. However, for pregnant women and children, special considerations must be proposed to avoid potential risks on fetal neurodevelopment due to methylmercury exposure.This work was supported by the EEA Grants Program, Public Health Initiatives (PT06 – 000088SI3); the Operational Programme Factors of Competitiveness – COMPETE from FEDER and national funding from the Foundation for Science and Technology – FCT (Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science) under the project ‘FOCAcCIa’ (POCI-01–0145-FEDER031949); the Epidemiology Research Unit (UIDB/04750/2020) (POCI-01–0145-FEDER-006862) and the FCT doctoral grant (SFRH/BD/146078/2019) (CC).