Washington, Sep 10 (Inditop.com) Studies have linked exposure to environmental lead with cardiovascular diseases. However, they have looked at lead concentrations in blood, not bone, which is a better indicator of cumulative lead exposure, says a new study.
Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the University of Michigan School of Public Health (U-MSPH) found that bone lead was associated with a higher risk of death from all causes, particularly from cardiovascular diseases.
“The findings with bone lead are dramatic. It is the first time we have had a biomarker of cumulative exposure to lead and the strong findings suggest that past exposures to lead represent an important predictor of cardiovascular death,” said Marc Weisskopf.
Weisskopf is assistant professor of environmental and occupational epidemiology at HSPH and lead author of the study.
Most of the lead circulating in the body is deposited in bone and remains there for years, unlike blood lead, which has a half life of about 30 days.
Since adverse effects from lead on the cardiovascular system would be expected to show up over time, the researchers expected that bone lead would be a better marker of chronic toxicity.
The researchers, led by Weisskopf and Howard Hu, professor of epidemiology and internal medicine at the U-MSPH, based their findings on data from 868 participants in the Department of Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study, that began in 1963.
The study appeared online in the journal Circulation.
