United States: A new study shows that many Americans born before 1996 may have mental health problems because they were exposed to harmful lead in car exhaust fumes. The study says this exposure is linked to 151 million cases of depression, anxiety, and ADHD. Other research also suggests that people who breathed in these fumes have lost millions of IQ points since 1940.
In 1996, the authorities of the USA decided it is unlawful to include lead in gasoline – but for the fifty years, Americans inhaled fumes containing this metal.
As reported by the dailymail.com, by combining data on the levels of lead in children’s blood and population statistics from 1999, the researchers from Duke University quantified the total dose of lead that all alive Americans in 2015 had received. They also estimated the impact of lead exposure on ‘mental health’.
Lead is understood to have psychological impact since it targets the nervous system. The lead containing smog when inhaled, the particles of the lead penetrate the blood stream in the lungs, the body then absorbs the particles inflaming the neurons and causing them to degenerate.
This can: delay development; lead to behavioural issues or affect the nervous system and in turn can contribute to or be indicative of psychiatric issues.
Aaron Reuben, the study co-author and a neuropsychology researcher from Duke University said: The Ridd : We have very few tools for actually getting lead out of the body and many of us have been exposed to levels hundreds if not a thousand times higher than natural.
Mathew Hauer, the study co-author and sociologist at Florida State University said: ‘More people were still having their psychiatric issues than would have if we had never introduced lead to gasoline.’
It is worth to notice that in 1923, people decided to enrich gasoline with lead to make it work more effectively through engine. It was also put in paint, solder and the pipes which transported drinking water were made from it.
For decades now health authorities have sought to gradually exclude the toxic material from the consumables that the American public depends on.
Whenever leaded gas is evaporated, the lead particles go into to the air and can be taken into the lungs or deposited on the ground.