The researchers also studied artisanal gold miners who use elemental mercury (Environ. Res. 2010, DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2010.02.001) and people who eat contaminated fish downstream of gold mines in Brazil (Environ. Health Perspect. 2011, DOI: 10.1289/ehp.1103741).
They showed an association between mercury levels in urine from the gold miners and levels of an autoantibody in their blood. That autoantibody is one that physicians use to help diagnose the autoimmune disease lupus, Nyland says. The scientists also found a correlation between total levels of mercury and methylmercury in hair or blood of people who consumed contaminated fish and levels of the autoantibody in their blood, although the correlation was not as strong as in the gold miners.
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