Lead poisoning has far greater impact on global health than previously thought: Study

A modelling research has suggested that poisoning caused by lead has a far greater impact on global health than previously thought. The study noted that the metal is potentially contributing to over five million deaths a year and posing a similar threat to air pollution.

The study titled - 'Global health burden and cost of lead exposure in children and adults: a health impact and economic modelling analysis' - was published on Tuesday (September 12) in The Lancet Planetary Health.

The study highlights how lead exposure is causing global health risks despite substantial declines in blood lead levels following the leaded gasoline phase-out.

"For the first time, to our knowledge, we aimed to estimate the global burden and cost of intelligence quotient (IQ) loss and cardiovascular disease mortality from lead exposure," the study read.

Researchers of the study said that they used country blood lead level estimates from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019.

They estimated IQ loss in the global population of children younger than five years using the blood lead level–IQ loss function from an international pooled analysis.

It further mentioned that the researchers estimated the cost of IQ loss, which was calculated only for the proportion of children expected to enter the labour force, as the present value of loss in lifetime income from the IQ loss.

The study added that the researchers estimated cardiovascular deaths (with 95% CIs) due to lead exposure among people aged 25 years or older using a health impact model.

The model captures the "effect of lead exposure on cardiovascular disease mortality that is mediated through mechanisms other than hypertension".

All estimates were calculated by World Bank income classification and region (for low-income and middle-income countries [LMICs] only) for 2019.

The study found that children younger than five years lost 765 million (95% CI 443–1098) IQ points and that 5,545,000 (2,305,000–8,271,000) adults died from cardiovascular disease in 2019 due to lead exposure.

Around 729 million of the IQ points lost, which was 95·3% of the total global IQ loss, and 5,004,000 (90·2% of total) cardiovascular disease deaths due to lead exposure occurred in LMICs.

According to the study, the IQ loss in LMICs was nearly 80% higher than a previous estimate and the cardiovascular disease deaths were six times higher than the GBD 2019 estimate.

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