Lead exposure from households and school settings: influence of diet on blood lead levels

Abstract

Lead is known as a potent toxicant to human health, particularly for children while their central nervous system is developing. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between blood lead levels (BLLs) and lead exposure in the children's diet, home, and school environments. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 153 children aged 1-4 years, in four day care centers (DCCs), where a high prevalence of lead exposure was previously found. Lead determination by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GF-AAS) was performed for venous blood, drinking water collected in the DCCs, and the 24-h diet (n = 64). Environmental screenings were conducted to evaluate lead concentrations in the tableware, buildings, and playground items in all DCCs and children's homes (n = 18) by using a field-portable X-ray fluorescence analyzer (FP-XRF). The BLL mean was 2.71 μg dL. Means for 24-h lead concentrations in the diet were 1.61 and 2.24 μg kg of body weight (BW) in two DCCs. Lead concentrations in the water supply were lower than 2 μg L. More than 11% of the DCCs' environmental analyses presented lead concentrations higher than or equal to 1 mg cm, as defined by the USEPA. The diet was not found to be a risk factor for lead exposure, but households and DCC settings raised concern. Children's exposure to lead in DCC environments, where they spend the most part of their weekdays, appeared to be relevant. Graphical abstract ᅟ.

Potentially Toxic Elements in Costume Cosmetics Used by Children and Adults Are Associated with Cancer Risk

“…Other hygiene and personal care products can also be a source of PTE exposure [52], adding to the risks estimated in the present study. Moreover, other sources unrelated to cosmetics may contribute to PTE exposure, such as toys, playground paints, diet, and occupational activities [55][56][57][58][59].…”

’As safe as houses; the risk of childhood lead exposure from housing in England and implications for public health’

“…We acknowledge that cases spend time in places other than the home, especially for school-aged children. A study in Sao Paulo, Brazil, found no associations with lead intake by diet (p = 0.4) or mean lead found in household environmental screenings (p = 0.15) but did find an association with day care centres environmental screenings (p < 0.001) [54], suggesting that settings other than the home are important for lead exposure and need to be considered for case investigation. Time spent in education and day care settings should also be considered for exposure to lead sources and is considered in UK public health risk assessments.…”

“…Further exposures which may be associated with elevated BLC were not included in our analyses and may therefore give rise to residual confounding; for example, housing tenancy (owned or rented) [18,51] parental occupation [52,53], ethnicity [17], other sources of exposure, diet, contaminated land, soil quality or contaminated consumer products [6,19,20,38,41,54]. Additionally, some case characteristics used ecological proxy measures based on area (e.g., deprivation, housing age and type) which may be inaccurate, leading to misclassification.…”

X-ray fluorescence spectrometry for environmental analysis: Basic principles, instrumentation, applications and recent trends

“…Qualitative analysis is an unbeatable feature of EDXRF due to its multielemental capability and the possibility to perform solid analysis with a minimum sample treatment. In this view, screening analysis is a seamless application for EDXRF, even more due to the widespread use of portable XRF systems (Leroux et al, 2018;McComb et al, 2014;Peng et al, 2020;Turner et al, 2015). However, some of the limitations of XRF in this domain are the limited sensitivity for some environmental-relevant elements and also overlapping issues of some characteristic X-ray lines (eg.…”