Not only are there no health benefits to eating shark fin, but new research shows that they are loaded with mercury and heavy metals that are higher than safe levels for humans.
Alternative medicine proponents say shark cartilage has cancer-fighting properties, a claim that has its origins in a mistaken belief that sharks do not get cancer. They do, though, and according to the National Cancer Institute, only one randomized clinical study on shark cartilage as a human cancer treatment has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and it showed the cartilage to be ineffective.
In fact, shark fins can be extremely unhealthy. Like many other fish products, they have been known to contain dangerously high levels of mercury. Mercury comes from ocean pollution, and, at the top of the food chain, sharks retain higher levels of the substance than most marine creatures.