Shark Fin Soup Health Risk Claims Include Degenerative Brain Diseases

By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer:

The destruction of sharks for shark fin soup has helped put many wild species of the fish on the road to extinction. Now, new research suggests this costly meal may harm humans, too.

An analysis of shark fins from Florida waters found high concentrations of β-N-methylamino-L-alanine, or BMAA, a neurotoxin that has been linked to Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's disease. The find raises concerns that consuming shark meat and cartilage may put consumers at risk.

“The concentrations of BMAA in the samples are a cause for concern, not only in shark fin soup, but also in dietary supplements and other forms ingested by humans," study co-author Deborah Mash, who directs the University of Miami Brain Endowment Bank, said in a statement.

The researchers tested seven species of shark for the study: blacknose, blacktip, bonnethead, bull, great hammerhead, lemon and nurse sharks. The scientists clipped tiny fin samples off of living animals so as not to harm their subjects.

Reporting in the journal Marine Drugs, the authors found BMAA concentrations ranging from 144 to 1,838 nanograms per milligram. According to Mash, those levels are similar to the levels found in the brains of Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's disease patients. Earlier research has linked the eating of BMAA-rich fruit bats in Guam with degenerative brain diseases, suggesting that consuming the toxin could affect human health.

The researchers hope the findings will help discourage the practice of shark-finning, in which as many as 70 million of sharks per year have their fins sliced off and are dumped back into the ocean to die.

"Not only does this work provide important information on one probable route of human exposure to BMAA, it may lead to a lowering of the demand for shark fin soup and consumption of shark products, which will aid ocean conservation efforts,” said study co-author Neil Hammerschlag, a University of Miami professor of marine affairs and policy.

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

• Image Gallery: Great White Sharks
• On the Brink: A Gallery of Wild Sharks
• Image Gallery: Mysterious Lives of Whale Sharks

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Comments

[Grand Supercycle]

10:08 PM on 12/23/2012

Restaurants that unfortunately sell SHARK FIN soup:

stopsharkfinning.net/boycott.htm
taasfa.com/shame.html
sharksavers.org/en/our-programs/i-m-finished-with-fins/get-active/restaurants

[EricDuan]

04:54 AM on 06/25/2012

Replica Handbags are designed for stylish women and serve the purpose of carrying necessary items for daily use. They are popular among business women as well as among younger generations. The materials used to make these Replica Designer Handbags range from kangaroo skin, calf skin, high quality leather and fabrics and so forth. Designers have ensured that they use materials that not just bring out a sophisticated finish, but are also highly durable. All Louis Vuitton Speedy 30 from Celine are attractively designed with a great degree of workmanship.

[ontariogirl]

11:57 AM on 02/27/2012

Yes.....it harms your conscience if you have one.

[marywindwolf]

12:18 PM on 02/26/2012

Son of Liberty..There you go again espousing your ignorant rightwinger inconsiderateness of the environment.
You're the only odd one out this comment board..
Sucks to be You..
Have a nice life

[Murman]

06:21 PM on 02/26/2012

he's trolling, just ignore him.....

[Son of Liberty 1765]

10:46 AM on 02/26/2012

LOL. WHenever there is a food that becomes the target of the greenies, it all of a sudden becomes deadly to eat. I think I am going to order some shark fin soup tonight.

[stoprollingover]

02:25 PM on 02/26/2012

Please do.

[Anne Mccormick]

10:39 PM on 02/25/2012

i hate shark fin soup. i have only had it once and that was more enough. in any case, the only place the fin belongs on is the shark.

[olitenup]

07:56 PM on 02/25/2012

Please let that be true!

[FlyingMako]

07:05 PM on 02/25/2012

It is unfortunate that since we as a species are so selfish, it takes something actually causing US harm to start questioning the practice. Why can't it be enough that these are amazing, beautiful creatures fully deserving of our respect and have every right to be here?

[Son of Liberty 1765]

10:47 AM on 02/26/2012

And we have a right to eat them.

[Sunwyn Ravenwood]

06:19 PM on 02/25/2012

I certainly hope so. Most animal slaughtering practices are inhumane, but cutting the fins off living sharks and then throwing them in the water is inhuman depravity.

[karen lyons kalmenson]

06:00 AM on 02/25/2012

anything that harms any part of our environment, hurts humans.

shark finning is heartless, and poetically how fitting it is that those who do so, and eat the profits, end up brainless

sharks are a vital part of our planet, and we need to share THEIR waters.

[Roadrun]

08:17 AM on 02/25/2012

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[karen lyons kalmenson]

09:22 AM on 02/25/2012

thank you☻

[David Daisy May Boldock]

09:14 AM on 02/25/2012

Absolutely concur with you totally Karen. Sharks are essential for our eco system, killing off many plankton eating prey that generates oxygen like trees do. Pity the 'human' animal is not so bright!

[karen lyons kalmenson]

09:37 AM on 02/25/2012

yep!!!

[karen lyons kalmenson]

09:54 AM on 02/25/2012

and scarier than scary...he thinks he is

[Patric Douglas]

01:23 AM on 02/25/2012

Yoo hoo Tsalco! That figure of 100 million sharks has been widely discredited, today most serious shark folks say 40-70 million. If you're going to make a statement ensure you have the facts not Facebook hype.

[Tsalco]

11:51 AM on 02/25/2012

Rather than demean with the with the "yoo hoo" and Facebook reference how about simply providing an actually reference for your info rather than doing what you accuse someone else of doing. Please follow your own advice, "If you're going to make a statement ensure you have the facts" and show the facts. Good sources of data would be very appreciated. Let's have a discussion and see if WE can figure out what the truth is.

The figures that I cite were based on the commonly cited 26-73 million sharks killed in ways such as finning. That is a similar number to what you present. Also, there are additional tens of million killed in other ways such as bycatch and recreational fishing. My sources were diverse such as Science Daily, NOAA, Sharkwater.com, Oceana.org, US National Marine Fisheries Service, Nat Geo, IUCN Shark Specialist Group, etc, etc.

[Tsalco]

08:12 PM on 02/24/2012

Shark finning is about as inhumane a practice as it gets. Take and look at these pictures:
http://uwf.edu/mers/MERSPage_files/Page1294.html

Consider that some species of sharks such as some hammerheads have declined in population of over 99% in just a few decades while most populations are plummeting off the cliff.

And that we probably slaughter over ONE HUNDRED MILLION sharks each year. That is equivalent to killing the entire population of the US every three years.

And over 200 of the approximate 400 shark species are on the IUCN (The World Conservation Union) Red list for endangered and threatened species.”

And most of this slaughter is just for a few percent of the shark's body, or for "sport", or as by-catch ("accidentally" caught when fishing for something else).

Now consider that shark fishing is still legal and shark fin soup is still legal in all of the US, except for California which just enacted a partial ban.

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." - Mohandas K Ghandi

Take a look these pictures and see how great and moral we are: http://www.google.com/search?q=Shark+finning&num=100&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvnsu&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ijBIT5nLAs2asgL7xfzqCA&ved=0CH4QsAQ&biw=1006&bih=1184

[CAMBEL]

09:13 PM on 02/24/2012

Actually Hammerhead populations have dropped by about 60% since 1990.

[Tsalco]

11:28 PM on 02/24/2012

I said "some hammerheads" and "few decades". I was not referring to all hammerheads and and was referring to a greater time period. If you extend your time period to about a decade before 1990, the number is MUCH greater than the 60% to which you refer.

Dr Julia Baum, a marine ecologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a member of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) said that many hammerheads are at risk of extinction and the scalloped hammerhead populations have declined in parts of the Atlantic by over 95% in 30 years.

Worse still, these declines are on top of what were already completely decimated populations. The present declines are percentages of the LAST HUNDREDTH of ONE PERCENT of the populations of just a couple of hundred years ago. A study in the scientific journal, Conservation Biology concluded that the hammerhead population has declined by more than 99.99% over the last 200 years. Records show hammerheads largely vanished from coastal waters around 1900.

[MaggieNYS]

09:04 AM on 02/25/2012

I don't think "since 1990" constitutes "a few decades".

[lw1]

06:29 PM on 02/24/2012

How can you tell anyone that wanted and Imbibed in the soup didn't already have Degenerative Brain Disease? I think you have to be wacked to want this in the first place.

[Patric Douglas]

01:24 AM on 02/25/2012

Well said!

[Chad Wheeler]

04:45 PM on 02/24/2012

I can't say I feel particularly sorry for anyone who gets ill from eating shark fin soup.

[stjoshy]

04:10 PM on 02/24/2012

good i hope anyone who knowingly still buys this product dies a slow painful death of maggots feasting upon their feeble and abusive minds... thats what the article is suggesting right?

[sindfetish]

04:47 PM on 02/24/2012

Well put! They would DESERVE it. Humans once again prove to be mindless fools in ingesting something from an endangered animal slaughtered for a part of it's body.

[Sunwyn Ravenwood]

06:17 PM on 02/25/2012

Not even slaughtered, they cut the fins off living sharks then throw them back in the water to bleed to death slowly. How disgusting is that?