Heavy metals accumulation in muscle tissue of Sardinia Pilchardus on the Montenegrin Cost

Today’s nutrition has a tendency to be based on seafood, as one of the basic foods of a healthy diet. With that in mind, studies of the quantity of heavy metals in fish are of great importance because the assessment of heavy metal intake in humans can be made only based on these studies. In the midst of the growing and intensifying use of heavy metals in modern industrial production and urban pollution, which contribute to the contamination of our environment, heavy metals can enter the food chain. The concentrations of trace metals, arsenic (As), lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), and zinc (Zn) were determined in the muscle tissues of Sardina pilchardus. Fish samples were collected during the spring of 2019 from the Boka Kotorska Bay and the open sea on the Montenegrin coast. The metal content of the Sardina pilchardus was analyzed using ICP-OES. The concentrations of the investigated trace metals in the Boka Kotorska Bay and the open sea on the Montenegrin coast, expressed in mg/kg wet weight, were: As: 3.8–6.8; Pb: 0.042–0.038; Hg: 0.048–0.047; Cu 0.607–0.583; Fe: 8.04–14,9; Mn: 0.604–0.863; and Zn: 7.71–9.21, respectively