INTERNAL LEAD AND CADMIUM EXPOSURE IN 6-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN FROM WESTERN AND EASTERN GERMANY

Lead and cadmium levels in blood and deciduous teeth (shed incisors on ly) of 6-year-old German children were determined in 1991 in a large e pidemiological study carried out in rural and urban areas of western G ermany (Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Dortmund, Borken) and eastern Germany (Leipzig, Halle, Magdeburg, Osterburg, Gardelegen, Salzwedel). In total, blood lead and cadmium levels of 2311 German children and t ooth lead and cadmium levels of 790 German children were analyzed. Blo od lead levels were generally low in all study areas with geometric me ans between 39.3 mu g/l and 50.8 mu g/l in the western German and betw een 42.3 mu g/l and 68.1 mu g/l in the eastern German study areas. The mean blood lead level of Turkish children (n = 213) living in the wes tern German study areas was 50.1 mu g/l and thus 5.6 mu g/l higher tha n the overall geometric mean of the western German children. The highe r exposure may be explained by a higher oral uptake from food and diff erent living conditions. These children were excluded from multiple re gression analysis because they were all living in the western study ar eas. The mean tooth lead levels ranged between 1.50 and 1.74 mu g/g in the western and between 1.51 mu g/g and 2.72 mu g/g in the eastern st udy areas. Thus, they show a distribution pattern similar to blood. Bl ood and tooth lead levels were higher in urban than in rural areas and higher in the eastern German than in the western German study areas. With regard to the blood and tooth cadmium concentrations, no signific ant differences between the study areas could be found. The mean cadmi um levels in blood ranged between 0.12 mu g/l and 0.14 mu g/l and the mean tooth cadmium concentrations between 20.8 ng/g and 27.8 ng/g. Blo od and tooth lead and cadmium levels of the eastern and western German children were thus mainly at a relatively low level in all rural and urban study areas. The study demonstrates and confirms that blood and tooth lead levels are influenced by several demographic, social, and e nvironmental variables. The results indicate that there has been a fur ther significant decrease of lead and cadmium exposure in western Germ an children since our last epidemiological study carried out in the sa me study areas in 1985/1986.