Just to preface my comments, I'm an environmental toxicologist. Although mercury was not the focus of my studies, I've very closely followed the subject of mercury and other contaminants in fish. I don't know why, but fish have been very closely studied, yet other foodstuffs have not been. The result is an unfortunate fear of contamination of one of the healthiest sources of protein known to man.

Mercury contamination is not something unique to fish. Your McDonald's hamburger patty probably has a similar amount of mercury in it. For some reason, people aren't looking that closely at domestic meat supplies. (Money trail.)

The fact is, fish consumption has been linked to numerous health benefits. We found that out by studying the diet of large numbers of people, and looking for correlations with health or adverse effects. Fish keeps coming to the top of the list for health benefits. All the people who were studied were eating contaminated fish. That's because all fish are contaminated, to some extent. As are your eggs, your meat, and so on. Pollution is everywhere, and it affects everything.

Despite that, depite high pollution levels, fish eating is correlated with health. The risk of mercury contamination is trivial, compared to the health benefits accruing from eating the fish. There was just a conference on the subject, a few weeks or so ago, and that is their take-home message. Ignore the issue of contaminants; eat the fish. I totally agree.

I've provided some detailed discussions of the issues (with excellent references) before, and I'm pressed for time......so, here's a link to a Usenet post. If you read my other posts in this thread, you'll find some discussions of the contaminant issue, and what fish oil does to promote health.

http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.su...de6d0e5?hl=en&

There is one simple thing to do, to minimize the risk of mercury that you do consume......make sure you get adequate selenium. Selenium binds to mercury. It totally inactivates it. Selenium deficiency is a risk in much of Europe, particularly Great Britain, so getting more selenium could alone improve mood.

Back to salmon. Salmon are full of omega-3 fats. Salmon protein may also have a mood effect. Fish is brain food, and we're still trying to figure out the details.

I hope you go back to eating salmon four times a week, and taking a selenium supplement, for security from mercury.

Lar