Lead in sweat and its relationship to salivary and urinary levels in normal healthy subjects.

Sweat was collected from the arms of 24 normal healthy subjects while they sat in a hot chamber. Blood, urine and saliva samples were also collected. These were analyzed for lead by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Sweat lead levels recorded in this study are lower than those previously reported. Subjects with mean blood lead levels of 8.62 micrograms dl-1 (range 6-13.6) had mean sweat levels of 5.2 micrograms l-1 (range 1.5-13.0), approximately 25% of their urinary levels. Although salivary lead levels with a mean of 4.8 micrograms l-1 (range 2.5-10) are comparable to sweat levels, their relationship to blood lead levels is poor (r = -0.186 compared with r values of 0.7208 and 0.234 for sweat and urinary levels, respectively).