Background exposure of general population to cadmium and lead in Tainan city, Taiwan.

Venous blood samples, 24-h total food duplicate samples, and rice samples were collected from 52 adult non-smoking women in the city of Tainan, southern Taiwan, in 1994, and analyzed for cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) by wet-digestion followed by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Daily dietary intake was 10 micrograms for Cd and 22 micrograms for Pb as geometric means, of which Cd and Pb in rice accounted for 34% and 1.4% of daily Cd and Pb intakes, respectively. The counterpart values for blood were 1.11 ng/ml and 44.5 ng/ml for Cd and Pb, respectively. International comparison with recently published data suggests that the exposure to Cd in Tainan should be among the lowest in the world.