The Effect of Smoking, Gender and Living the City on the Blood Lead Levels in Healthy Individuals

• Main Author: İsmail Hamdi Kara
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dicle University Medical School 2004-01-01
• Series: Dicle Medical Journal
• Subjects: Heavy Smoking; Haemodialysis; Blood Lead Level; Lead Intoxication
• Online Access: http://4181.indexcopernicus.com/fulltxt.php?ICID=887946

It was aimed to determine the effect of smoking, gender and living the city on theblood lead levels (BLL) in the healthy individuals.This descriptive study included 21 healthy subjects (12 male and 9 female). TheBLL were analyzed by age, gender, settlement and smoking status. BLL were measuredby Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (Unicam 929). SPSS/PC 10.0 program wereused for statistical analyses.Subjects were ranged between 21-70 years with a mean±SEM of 44.1±3.8 years.mean blood lead in Healthy subjects is 27.8±3.9 μg/dl. A non-negligible percentage ofthe healthy population (66.7%) had values over 20 micrograms/dl, the threshold forrisk in occupational exposure, and 23.8% over 45 micrograms/dl which reflects leadintoxication required emergency medical treatment. In healthy subjects, the differencewas determined between BLL regarding to settlement in the city (32.9±4.4 μg/dl) andrural region (15.2±5.3 μg/dl) (p<0.05). BLL of the men have been found higher thanthose of women, however, there have not determined statistically difference (p>0.05).As a result of our study, it was determined that smoking and the living the citysignificantly increased the BLL in healthy individuals. Especially, heavy smokingsignificantly affected the BLL.