• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Monday, December 11, 2023
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

Cross-generational consequences of lead poisoning

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
June 30, 2021
in Health
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

IMAGE

Credit: Hokuto Nakata

Japanese and Zambian scientists have shown that environmental lead poisoning in children affects not only their own health and wellbeing, but the vitality and mental health of their mothers, as well.

Lead poisoning is a common pediatric problem caused by the environment, and is easily preventable. Due to their smaller size and mass, infants and children are at a higher risk of negative effects compared to adults. Chronic lead poisoning leads to fatigue, sleeping problems, headaches, stupor, and anemia. The population of Kabwe, Zambia, is exposed to extremely high levels of lead. This is a direct result of the Broken Hill mine, which operated until 1994, contaminating the surrounding area; a large number of citizens in Kabwe make a living working the mine tailings, further exposing themselves to heavy metal poisoning.

Recently, a team of scientists from Japan and Zambia, including Hokkaido University’s Professor Harukazu Tohyama and Dr. Hokuto Nakata, have established a significant negative correlation between chronic lead poisoning in children and health-related quality of life of their mothers. Their findings were published in the journal Chemosphere.

The health-related quality of life (HRQoL) comprehensively assesses the health and well-being of an individual. Children’s health and well-being strongly influences the HRQoL of their mothers, with both positive and negative outcomes having been documented. The effects of chronic lead poisoning of children on maternal HRQoL were assumed to be negative; however, it had not been investigated and the exact extent of the interrelation was unknown.

The study was carried out on 40 randomly selected areas in Kabwe, with 25 households tested in each area. The scientists combined data from tests on blood samples, a health survey (SF-36) and an economic survey (KHSS 2017), and carried out statistical analyses to find significant relationships between these three factors.

The scientists demonstrated significant negative associations between the blood lead levels (BLLs) of the children in Kabwe and the HRQoL scores of their mothers, irrespective of the blood lead levels in the mothers. Mental health and vitality were particularly impacted. Previous studies reported that lead exposure may cause behavioral problems in children, which could be the cause of the adverse effects on the vitality of their mothers that was found in this study. Socio-economic factors and maternal age did affect the HRQoL scores, but only in some areas, unlike children’s BLLs. In addition, the BLLs of children were significantly higher than that of their parents.

The biggest limitation of the study was that not all of the 1000 selected households were able to provide data for all parameters examined; in fact, just 404 households provided data of sufficient quality to be analysed. Future work must focus on examining the relations between HRQoL scores, household incomes, and BLLs at a larger scale.

“Urgent medical intervention for the children with high BLL combined in parallel with environmental remediation in Kabwe would not just improve the health status of children in Kabwe, but could also improve the HRQoL of mothers,” says Hokuto Nakata.

###

Media Contact
Sohail Keegan Pinto
[email protected]

Original Source

https://www.global.hokudai.ac.jp/blog/cross-generational-consequences-of-lead-poisoning/

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.130490

Tags: Ecology/EnvironmentEnvironmental HealthMedicine/HealthMental HealthPublic HealthToxicology
Share13Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Anne Peery, MD, MSCR, associate professor of medicine, UNC School of Medicine

Doctors discover many patients at UNC’s Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinic screen positive for malnutrition

December 8, 2023
Oxygen study enters uncharted territory

A dynamic picture of how we respond to high or low oxygen levels

December 8, 2023

Milestones in Europe: First results in using new tools to tackle respiratory syncytial virus

December 8, 2023

Engaging heterosexual men more effectively could slash HIV infections in Uganda

December 8, 2023
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Figure 1

    Understanding rapid tendon regeneration in newts may one day help human athletes

    85 shares
    Share 34 Tweet 21
  • Photonic chip that ‘fits together like Lego’ opens door to semiconductor industry

    36 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9
  • Study finds increasingly popular oral nicotine pouches do little to curb smokers’ cravings

    35 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9
  • SMART researchers pioneer novel microfluidic method to optimise bone marrow stem cell extraction for advanced cell therapies

    35 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Landscape for AML patients evolving rapidly as research discoveries advance new treatments

Cell therapy appears safe and effective for lymphoma in remission

ASH: Targeted oral therapy reduced disease burden and improved symptoms for patients with rare blood disorder

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 58 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In