According to a recent study, childhood exposure to lead in gasoline has caused millions of extra cases of mental problems over the past 75 years.
In 1996, lead was outlawed in motor gasoline. By examining children blood lead levels from 1940 to 2015, the study examined its long-term effects in the United States and was published on Wednesday in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
The results showed that exposure to lead from vehicle exhaust during early childhood was responsible for an estimated 151 million additional mental health issues in the country.
According to the study, the exposure caused generations of Americans to become more worried, sad, hyperactive, or inattentive.
Researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina, Florida State University, and Duke University discovered that the exposure also reduced people’s ability to regulate their impulses and increased their propensity to be neurotic.
The study found that those born between 1966 and 1986 had the greatest significant disparities in lead-associated mental health and personality traits.
Generation Xers born between 1966 and 1970, when leaded gasoline usage peaked in the middle of the 1960s and the middle of the 1970s, had the highest burden of lead-linked mental disease within that cohort.
Aaron Reuben, a co-author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow in neuropsychology at Duke and the Medical University of South Carolina, stated that people born in those years “can’t go back in time and change that.”
“Removing lead from our environment and not putting it there in the first place has more benefits than we previously understood,” Reuben added, citing studies like the one we’re doing today.
According to the study, the groups with the lowest levels of lead exposure and lead-associated mental disorder were those born between 1940 and 2015.
Lead is no longer found in gasoline, but it can still be found in other products including some imported toys, outdated water pipes, and some paint and soil in older homes. (In 1978, lead paint was outlawed.)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state that there is no acceptable amount of lead exposure. Since lead exposure is known to damage the brain, neurological system, and reproductive system, even trace quantities are linked to learning and developmental problems. The most susceptible age group for lead poisoning is children under six.
The study, which was released on Wednesday, integrated information from previous research, including a 2019 study of around 600 people in New Zealand that tracked children exposed to lead and assessed their mental health across more than three decades, with data on blood lead levels and estimates of historical lead exposure.
The new research “doesn’t create new information about whether lead causes harm, nor do we say this is a study that proves causation — we’re really just taking existing evidence and applying it to the whole U.S. population,” according to Reuben, the study’s primary author.
He went on, “We’re not worried that we’ve overestimated the harm in any way.”
The study was commended by Dr. Lisa Fortuna, head of the Council on Children, Adolescents, and Their Families of the American Psychiatric Association.
There aren’t many research that examine the possible links between environmental or toxin-related dangers and the emergence of higher rates of mental health issues in communities, she added. “The study provided some insight into the significant and enduring influence of environmental factors.”
According to Fortuna, the results of the study shouldn’t raise alarms.
I would reply that it does not imply that individuals are unable to overcome their mental disease. They won’t necessarily be at greater danger because of it,” she added. “It really comes down to, ‘This is what has occurred at a population level.'”
The study was conducted a few years after Reuben and other researchers discovered that around half of Americans had reduced IQs as a result of being exposed to leaded gasoline. According to that study, Americans lost over 824 million IQ points as a result of being exposed to lead from gasoline as children.
The initial purpose of adding lead to gasoline was to enhance engine performance. After World War II, leaded gas use grew until it was shown to be harmful to catalytic converters, which were mandated in the 1970s. Reducing exposure to lead did not become a government priority for many years, even though some of its dangers were recognized long before it was prohibited from gasoline.
All young children should now get screened for lead, and if levels are excessive, chelation therapy is one way to get rid of the toxins. According to Reuben, the greatest way to keep people safe is to prevent them.
“In the United States, we’ve made significant progress in lowering lead exposures. Although blood lead levels have significantly decreased, he stated that they may still do so. “I hope we can try to apply the lessons we learned from history about the harm we caused in the United States going forward.”
