Table 4.

Health-based guidance values for Hg in biological matrices.

	Reference Population	HBM-I [77]	HBM-II [77]	NRC, [46]	JECFA, [78]	Bellanger et al. [61]
Total Hg in urine	children and women of child-bearing age	7 µg/L (5 µ/g creat.)	25 µg/L (20 µ/g creat.)
Total Hg in blood	children and women of child-bearing age	5 µg/L	15 µg/L
MeHg in hair a	children and women of child-bearing age			1 µg/g	2.3 µg/g	0.58 µg/g
Total Hg cord blood	-			5.8 µg/L
Total Hg maternal blood	pregnant women			3.5 µg/L

^a Dry weight; HBM: human biomonitoring; NRC: National Research Council; FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; JECFA: Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives; Creat.: creatinine.