- A new statement shows that chronic exposure to lead, cadmium, and arsenic increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and other negative health outcomes.
- Regulations have helped curb the levels of these contaminants, but they’re still present in many areas.
- Older houses, older pipes, and contaminated groundwater are a source of these contaminants, along with certain occupations.
- These negative effects disproportionately affect those in lower socioeconomic brackets.
- For most people, the risk remains low, but experts say it’s important to monitor your health and limit exposure.
Despite decades of regulatory work to limit the amount of lead and other toxic metals in the environment, experts say the risk of adverse health effects still remains.
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The risk varies considerably based on a number of factors, including exposure to contaminated soil, socioeconomic factors, and occupation.
While it’s important to be mindful of these risk factors, an expert interviewed by Medical News Today says that, for most people, there’s little cause for alarm.
Lead poisoning has been present in human settlements for as long as humans have been mining lead, roughly 6,000 years or so.
The connection between lead exposure and negative health outcomes is well understood, but it’s only in the past century that regulations aimed at limiting human exposure to lead have been on the books.
Dr. Ana Navas-Acien, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York and director of Columbia’s Northern Plains Superfund Research…
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