From March to September every year, shellfish poisoning incidents occur frequently in some areas of the Pacific coast, almost every year are reminded, but every year there are reports of poisoning around the world, including the Americas, Asia, Southeast Asia and other places, China Zhejiang for decades, has also reported many times about the snail (Nas-sarius spp) poisoning incidents, and a total of hundreds of people poisoned, dozens of deaths, so shellfish poisoning is not a rare thing, but a frequent occurrence.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > shellfish</h1>
Shellfish have so many poisoning incidents, also because its edible value is very high, but never expected, some shellfish will also carry high poison, if not handled well, will bring a fatal crisis. Shellfish belong to one of the molluscs, and in the global scope, molluscs are widely distributed, there are more than 110,000 species in existence, so those who can eat, those who can not eat and do not have a boundary, and the most common in our lives are mussels, clams, snails, oysters, scallops and so on.
These are the ones we eat the most, and they are also the highest incidence of poisoning, and at the same time, for different shellfish, its poisoning situation is not the same, because the types of toxins contained are different, so it is still very difficult to take measures after poisoning. Among them, mussels should be the most well-known one, which we also call haihong. The shellfish is mainly distributed in the Yellow Sea, Bohai Sea and East China Sea coast, so it is actually very easy to catch, then there are more people who eat it.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >Why are mussels poisonous? </h1>
In fact, there is a misunderstanding in this, the mussel itself is not toxic, and the reason why it is toxic is because its body swallows the toxin-containing "toxic monastic algae" into the body when it ingests food, but the organism does not die because of the intake of toxic monocular algae, which is related to the internal immune system of the mussel. After ingestion, the toxic algae is not excreted from the body, but accumulates in the body of the mussel and becomes a paralytic shellfish poison, that is, PSP, which is of course one of the main shellfish toxins, which is similar to what we call tetrodotoxin and snail.
And this toxin will not be easily cleaned up before being eaten, and these toxins are colorless and tasteless, heat resistance is very strong, so in the state of high temperature cooking, it may not be able to destroy the structure of the toxin, so that it loses its toxicity, then once people eat the mussels containing toxins will be poisoned, this is the reason, in addition to mussels, snails, oysters, scallops and other products, is also common, so shellfish poisoning is how to come, in general, the characteristics of poisoning symptoms, paralysis is the most common, Let's take a look at how strong paralytic shellfish toxins really are.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > how strong is paralytic shellfish toxin? Can I still eat it? </h1>
Paralytic shellfish toxin is one of the most common toxins in China's marine red tide toxin, of course, as mentioned above, mussels themselves do not have the presence of this toxin, but because of ingestion into the body, and the toxin - extremely toxic, there is no specific detoxification method. According to publicly available data, the toxin can kill people at just 0.5 mg and is 80 times more toxic than cobra venom. So we try not to eat shellfish, is the best way to avoid, of course, eat it, need to be handled in a scientific way. For example, when eating shellfish, the internal organs should be removed, etc., if it is poisoned, the impact is not low.
And in china's coastal areas, we know that there are more than 260 species of organisms that can cause red tide, of which there are 78 species that can produce red tide toxins, shellfish organisms are one of them, as long as algal toxins accumulate in shellfish species, when the toxin content exceeds the human food safety standards, there will be a risk of poisoning, the general paralytic shellfish poisoning Incubation period is as short as 5 minutes, up to 4 hours, so some people may react quickly, some people react very slowly, and death usually occurs within 2 to 12 hours after illness.
This is the impact of paralytic shellfish toxin, but in order to eat, many people may not care about the source of these seafood products, as well as the monitoring of seafood products, so it will trigger the frequent occurrence of poisoning incidents, and because the frequency of red tide is rising, the frequency of shellfish poisoning events has also increased.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > why the phenomenon of red tide is becoming more and more frequent, and what is the impact? </h1>
The occurrence of red tide is indispensable to the ecological environment, although the rapid development of human industry and agriculture, the pollution of the coast can be said to be increasing, resulting in large-scale instability in the marine ecosystem, so there is also its own "control of red tide" weakened, coupled with global climate change, resulting in the frequent occurrence of red tide, then under the "double impact", the frequency of red tide will inevitably rise, and after the occurrence of red tide, the crisis brought by it is also very large.
In addition to the toxins of shellfish brought by the red tide that we are talking about, which have an impact on humans, it will also produce regional extinctions for marine organisms, because in the area where red tide occurs, it is easy to cause hypoxia in the water, so it will cause large-scale fish to suffocate due to lack of oxygen, which directly leads to ecosystem imbalance. Even if the fish do not die directly, as long as the fish swallows the poisonous algae, it will lead to death. So this is a direct crisis to the ecosystem.
Of course, the scientific community is also trying to find ways to control the red tide, hoping to reduce the frequency of occurrence, but from the current situation, the possibility of eradication is not very large, it depends on whether the future can further reduce the life brought by the red tide, the impact of the ecosystem. Red tide is a marine anomaly that is also known internationally as "harmful algae" or "red specter". This shows that it has always existed, but now the scale is larger, and the impact is much greater.