The present study was initiated to assess current level of general population exposure to lead (Pb) in terms of Pb in urine (Pb-U). For this purpose, spot urine samples were collected from 2, 332 never-smoking adult women in 10 areas all-over Japan, and were subjected to analysis for Pb-U by graphite furnace atomic absorption (GFAA). Data on cadmium in urine (Cd-U) as measured by GFAA were cited from a previous publication¹⁾. The grand geometric means (GM) for Pb-U as observed, as corrected for creatinine (cr) and as corrected for a specific gravity of 1.016 were 1.06μg/l, 1.28 μg/g cr and 1.14 μg/l, respectively, with small intra- and inter-variations with geometric standard deviations of about 2 or less. Arithmetic means of the 10 GMs (one each for the 10 areas) were 1.05 μg/l, 1.19 μg/g cr and 1.18 μg/l, respectively. The levels observed appeared to be lower than levels reported for other populations in the world. Chronological comparison within Japan suggested a gradual decrease in Pb-U in past over 20 yr. No close correlation was detected between Pb-U and Cd-U.

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