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Lead is a metal and that is poisonous and toxic to people, especially children, when it is ingested. It is no longer used as a gasoline additive (banned since the 1980s), or in lead-based household paint (banned since 1970s), but it does continue to be used in many products, including batteries, ammunition, solder, pipes, pottery glazes, printing inks and paint for industrial, military and marine use. And since lead that has contaminated soil from the past use of leaded paint and gasoline does not degrade or break down with time, children continue to be at risk for lead poisoning.
Still, lead contamination has decreased significantly since the 1970s when children had a mean blood level of 13. In the mid 1990s, the mean blood level had decreased to only 2.
Lead enters your body by inhaling or breathing dust that is contaminated with lead. Lead based paint on windows can create dust that is contaminated with lead when the windows are repeatedly opened and closed. Lead can also enter your body when you ingest or swallow something that is made of lead or that has a lead coating, especially paint chips, if you eat or drink something that was in a container that had lead in it, especially canned foods that are processed outside of the United States, or foods that are stored or served in plates or pottery that contain a lead glaze. Water can also be a source of lead if your house has lead pipes or other pipes with lead solder. You can also absorb lead through your skin (dermal absorption).
Children are most at risk for lead poisoning for many reasons, including that children absorb about seven times more of the lead that they ingest into their bodies than adults do. Children also ingest more lead because they often put things into their mouth and eat nonfood items (pica).
Once it is in the body, lead becomes distributed into the blood and body organs (kidney, liver, etc.), but the majority of it is deposited into bone. Lead exerts its effects by binding to enzymes and interfering with their action and by interacting with calcium, iron, and zinc and interfering with their normal function.
Children that are most at risk from developing problems from ingesting lead are those aged 6 months to 6 years, since they still have immature organ systems, whose development lead interferes with.
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