How dangerous is lead

- How dangerous is lead for our health?
• Answer: The amount of lead introduced into our environment since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is enormous.

• More than 7 million tons of lead have been used as gasoline additives in the U.S. alone.

• Much of this lead is now widely distributed on the earth’s surface. Urban soil and house dust can contain 33 to 500 times the normal concentration of earth lead.

• The bottom sediment of U.S. lakes now contains about 20 times more lead than they did just 100 years ago.

• Lead is a slow, cumulative poison deposited eventually in the bones.

The main sources

• The main sources of lead exposure include the production and burning of storage batteries, solder, paint, leaded gasoline, electric cable covering, pottery glaze, leaded glass, newsprint, ashes and fumes from burning old painted wood, black and colored inks, and drinking water that has passed through lead pipes.

• Fortunately, we have technology to avoid the use of lead in virtually all of the above industrial processes.

Symptoms

• Lead exposure remains a major health problem for children today in the inner cities. Symptoms of lead exposure include colic and abdominal cramping, psychological and behavioral disorders, and decreased memory and learning ability.

Consequences

• Greater levels of lead are associated with peripheral neuritis (inflammation of the nerves), paralysis, anemias, fatigue, and a serious type of encephalopathy (brain disorder) resulting in convulsive seizures, mania, de307 lirium, stupor and coma.

• Elegant studies by Dr. Herb Needleman and others confirm that even lower doses of lead can result in long term learning impairment in children.

• This is frequent in children living in our inner cities.


• Vitamin C and the trace element zinc both tend to displace significant amounts of lead in the body.

• Foods rich in zinc as well as ascorbic acid include the fresh vegetables, along with fruit and nuts.
Source: Get Well at Home