Lead – Effects & Testing | TestCountry Articles

Lead – Effects & Testing

Lead is a soft, heavy, toxic, malleable, metallic element that can damage the nervous system if its levels increase the permitted levels in blood. In young, developing children it has a diverse array of annihilating effects. A prolonged exposure to the lead and/or its salts may lead to several disabilities like:

Learning disability.
Shortened attention span.
Lower IQ.
Behavior problems.
Growth delays.
Damage to multiple organs.
Nephropathy.
Colic-like abdominal pains.
Cognitive disorders like schizophrenia.
Death (at very lethal levels)

There are various ways by which young children may get exposed to lead. Lead can easily be found in various common sources which are usually within the reach of children. These potential sources could be anything from lead paints on walls, on furniture & decorative items to lead based crafts etc. Lead in soil & lucrative paints may enter the digestive system of children at playschools. As the lead paints taste sweet, little kiddies are inclined to eat lead paint chips that open up all the possibilities for them to get infected.

Particularly, children playing or living near highways or industrial areas are exposed to high levels of lead present in their surrounding environment. Lead fumes from industries, mills and automobiles exhaust contributes a major chunk to total lead levels.

Sponsored Advertisement

High blood lead levels may have devastating effects. Lead poisoning in young children can cause developmental delays, speech delays, hyperactivity, hearing problems and various behavioral problems. It is observed that, the age group of school going children is more prone to the lead poising than the graduating young men & women. Studies suggest that teenagers and adults, who were poisoned early in their lives, are more prone to disorders related to growth and have a greater likelihood to be in trouble with the law later in life. Even a mother having higher lead levels, can transmit it to the fetus.

In this scenario, importance of blood lead level testing increases manifold. Children must be tested for the chronic and the toxic levels of lead in their blood and serum periodically. This helps keep track of the lead levels and to take necessary medication and precautions to keep the lead levels low.

No doubt, prevention is better than cure but one should keep monitoring his/her family for presence of heavy metals, specifically for lead, for all the mayhem it causes otherwise! So, you should certainly not wait for the symptoms and the signs of high lead content in your body to show up before you decide to take the test!