BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – The impacts of exposure to leaded gasoline and the effectiveness of the public health policy to phase out Tetraethyl lead (TEL) are examined in a new study that suggests its widespread use might have contributed to millions of mental health disorders.
“The overall takeaway is that those individuals that were born during the late 60s, 70s, 80s when, you know, sort of peak use of leaded gasoline was occurring in the U.S., and then we went through a series of steps to ban it or eliminate it… that those individuals were probably at the, according to their study, at the highest risk for various mental health problems,” explained Dr. Jeffrey Wickliffe, Professor and Chair, Environmental Health Services, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).
The study, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, uses historical data to estimate blood-lead level (BLL) rates prior to 1976, when this type of testing became standard practice in the United States. Researchers combined those estimates with historic leaded-gasoline data, and data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHAMES) to calculate the possible mental health impacts.
It found the most lead-exposed generation, born between 1966 and 1980, experienced the largest increase in mental health symptoms, including anxiety, depression, and Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD).
“Probably our dominant source of environmental lead exposure [during that time] was from leaded gasoline… one of the ways you’re exposed is just by inhaling the polluted air that has lead in it from the emissions, but some of that then settles out in areas where those emissions occur. And those are usually some of the highly urbanized areas where there’s a lot of car traffic, and so a lot of those older cities, older, highly urbanized areas that had a lot of car traffic also have a lot of lead in their soil,” explained Dr. Wickliffe.
The study does not include lead-exposure from contaminated water pipes, or lead-based paints. Researchers explain their findings should be “considered likely floors for lead-attributable psychiatric disease rather than ceilings.”
Efforts to begin phasing out leaded gasoline started in 1973, and was banned for vehicles beginning in model-year 1975, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Leaded gasoline was still used in earlier-model cars until banned in 1996.
“The study also shows…that banning lead and gasoline was by far and away a very impactful public health policy to reduce lead exposures,” said Dr. Wickliffe.
He added, that the study is, “a very credible source of information, but again, it’s not really a causal study showing that lead actually did this, but the association is pretty robust.”
He suggests people born during this period, who might have questions about the impacts of their childhood lead-exposure, to contact their physician.
“Hearing about this study, knowing when you were born, knowing maybe where you were born, and then if you have any sort of mental health issues, perhaps some of those being diagnosed, you, you might be concerned that maybe that lead exposure is what did this and what what can I do about it?”
He added, “I think it’s better to go ahead and try to have an understanding whether or not you can do anything about it now to mitigate those problems.”
The researchers concluded its findings reveal, “large swaths of the population likely experienced elevated lead-linked mental illness symptomology and altered personality, with significant implications for national well-being, innovation, economic productivity, need for and use of psychiatric services, and the prevalence of physical comorbidities, all of which bear individual investigation and estimation.”
The least-led exposed generations with the lowest lead-linked mental health illness are those born around 1940 and 2015, according to this study.
The current blood lead reference value (BLRV) is 3.5 micrograms per deciliter, which is used to identify children with higher levels of lead in their blood, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The first significant report released in 1982 showed the mean blood-lead level for children five and younger was 16 micrograms per deciliter.
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