School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2012 Mar-Apr;22(2):198-203. doi: 10.1038/jes.2011.46. Epub 2011 Dec 14.
To investigate the association between lead powder use, as folk skin care, and blood lead level (BLL) in children, we studied 222 children up to 14-years old living in a Chinese rural area and administered a face to face interview with their parents to collect information on lead powder use and other potential exposure. We measured children's BLL at baseline and 2 years later after an intervention. The children were divided into three categories according to their use of lead powder: regular use, irregular use and never use. We applied multivariate linear regression to determine the association between lead powder use and elevated BLL. The average BLL of all children was 18 μg/dl; 56% of them had BLL of 10 μg/dl or higher. Lead powder use was significantly associated with elevated BLL. After adjusting for potential confounders the BLL of regular and irregular users was higher than non-users by 3.11 μg/dl and 1.47 μg/dl, respectively. Duration of lead powder use was positively associated with BLL, but the time since last use was inversely associated. A significant BLL reduction was observed 2 years later, and the greatest reduction (21 μg/dl) was seen in the youngest group of regular users. This study showed that traditional use of lead powder for a skin care purpose was a major contributor to elevated BLL in these children.
为了研究作为民间护肤用品的铅粉使用与儿童血铅水平（BLL）之间的关系，我们对居住在中国农村地区的 222 名 14 岁以下儿童进行了研究，并对其父母进行了面对面的访谈，以收集有关铅粉使用和其他潜在暴露的信息。我们在基线和干预 2 年后测量了儿童的 BLL。根据儿童使用铅粉的情况，将其分为常规使用、不规则使用和从未使用三类。我们应用多元线性回归来确定铅粉使用与血铅升高之间的关联。所有儿童的平均 BLL 为 18μg/dl；其中 56%的儿童 BLL 为 10μg/dl 或更高。铅粉使用与血铅升高显著相关。在调整了潜在混杂因素后，常规使用者和不规则使用者的 BLL 分别比非使用者高 3.11μg/dl 和 1.47μg/dl。铅粉使用时间与 BLL 呈正相关，而末次使用时间与 BLL 呈负相关。两年后观察到 BLL 显著降低，常规使用者中年龄最小的组降低幅度最大（21μg/dl）。本研究表明，传统的铅粉护肤用途是导致这些儿童血铅升高的主要原因。
