Blood pressure and hypertension in relation to lead exposure updated according to present-day blood lead levels.

Lead is an environmental hazard that should be addressed worldwide. Over time, human exposure to lead in the Western world has fallen drastically to the levels comparable to those in humans living in the pre-industrial era, who were mainly exposed to natural sources of lead. To re-evaluate the health risks possibly associated with present-day lead exposure, a three-pronged approach was applied. First, we critically assessed the recently published population metrics describing the adverse health effects associated with lead exposure at the population level. Next, we summarized the key results of the Study for Promotion of Health in Recycling Lead (SPHERL; NCT02243904) and analyzed these results in the context of the published population metrics. Last but not least, we performed a brief literature review on the present-day lead exposure level in Poland. To our best knowledge, SPHERL is the first prospective study that accounted for interindividual variation in vulnerability to the toxic effects of lead exposure by assessing the participants' health status before and after occupational lead exposure, with blood pressure and hypertension as the primary outcomes. The overall conclusion of this comprehensive review on blood pressure and hypertension is that mainstream ideas about the public and occupational health risks related to lead exposure need to be urgently updated because a large part of the available literature has become obsolete given present-day exposure levels that sharply declined over the past 40 years.

Public and occupational health risks related to lead exposure updated according to present-day blood lead levels.

Lead is an environmental hazard that should be addressed worldwide. Over time, human lead exposure in the western world has decreased drastically to levels comparable to those among humans living in the preindustrial era, who were mainly exposed to natural sources of lead. To re-evaluate the potential health risks associated with present-day lead exposure, a two-pronged approach was applied. First, recently published population metrics describing the adverse health effects associated with lead exposure at the population level were critically assessed. Next, the key results of the Study for Promotion of Health in Recycling Lead (SPHERL; NCT02243904) were summarized and put in perspective with those of the published population metrics. To our knowledge, SPHERL is the first prospective study that accounted for interindividual variability between people with respect to their vulnerability to the toxic effects of lead exposure by assessing the participants' health status before and after occupational lead exposure. The overall conclusion of this comprehensive review is that mainstream ideas about the public and occupational health risks related to lead exposure urgently need to be updated because a large portion of the available literature became obsolete given the sharp decrease in exposure levels over the past 40 years.

Association of circulating selenium concentration with dyslipidemia: Results from the NHANES.

BACKGROUND: Observational studies have suggested that selenium levels might associate with the risk of cardio-metabolic diseases, but how circulating selenium is related to dyslipidemia remains inconclusive. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the association of circulating selenium levels with lipid profiles and dyslipidemia among US adults. METHODS: Using the data collected from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES 1999-2006), we performed multivariate logistic regression to examine the association of circulating selenium levels (in quartiles) with total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), non-HDL-C, and atherogenic index (AI). RESULTS: We included 2903 adults (49.3 % male) (average age: 61.9) for analysis. Circulating selenium had non-linear association with TC, LDL-C, HDL-C, and AI (all p < 0.05). When comparing with the lowest quartile, subjects with the highest quartile of circulating selenium (>147.00 µg/L) had the higher odds of elevated TG (OR: 1.75, 95% CI = 1.14, 2.68), TC (OR: 2.47, 95% CI = 1.62, 3.76), LDL-C (OR: 2.52, 95% CI = 1.60, 3.96), non-HDL-C (OR: 2.17, 95% CI = 1.41, 3.33), AI (OR: 1.20, 95% CI = 0.73, 1.97) and low-HDL-C (OR: 2.10, 95% CI = 1.19, 3.72). Similar patterns were observed in subgroup analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Higher circulating selenium levels had non-linear association with lipid profiles and the increased odds of dyslipidemia.