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Blood lead levels in children from Sardinian villages at high risk of environmental crisis

TLDR
The results confirm the findings of previous investigations of blood lead levels in children from Sardinian villages with different environmental risks of lead pollution: the children of Portoscuso present higherBlood lead levels than other groups of Sardinian children.
Abstract
This study reports blood lead levels measured in 1998 in children from three Sardinian villages: Portoscuso, Sant'Antioco, and Sestu. Portoscuso is located about 2 km from one of the most important industrial complexes in Sardinia. Sant'Antioco, together with the villages of Carbonia, Gonnesa, Portoscuso and San Giovanni Suergiu, is in the Sulcis-Iglesiente zone, defined as an “area of high risk of environmental crisis” on the basis of the Decree of the Italian Council of Ministers dated November 30, 1990. Sestu, a semi-urban centre about 10 km from Cagliari (the island's capital), can be considered not exposed to lead pollution. Blood lead concentration was determined in heparinized venous blood samples by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Comparing the mean blood lead levels for the boys of Portoscuso measured in 1993 (9.27 μg/dl) and 1998 (11.30 μg/dl), we found an increase of 21.90%, whereas the mean values for the girls are practically identical in 1993 (7.35 μg/dl) and 1998 (7.39 μg/dl). In contrast, in the boys and girls of Sestu, the mean blood lead levels decrease from 1993 to 1998 by 55.62% and 29.09% respectively (from 6.71 μg/dl to 4.09 μg/dl in the boys; from 4.71 μg/dl to 3.34 μg/dl in the girls). In the Sant'Antioco children, we found a 52.65% decrease from 1987 (8.30 μg/dl reported for a sample not subdivided by sex)) to 1998 (3.93 μg/dl for males and females combined). Our results confirm the findings of previous investigations of blood lead levels in children from Sardinian villages with different environmental risks of lead pollution: the children of Portoscuso present higher blood lead levels than other groups of Sardinian children.

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Effects of local scale perturbations in the Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus L.) trap fishery of Sardinia (W. Mediterranean)

TL;DR: In this article, the catch variability in the historical traps of Isola Piana, Portoscuso and Porto Paglia, and effects of three local environmental variables: Mining, Run-off and Sea Surface Temperature were analyzed.
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Correlation between blood and hair lead levels in boys and girls of Sardinia (Italy)

TL;DR: The pattern among samples with diff erent environmental backgrounds and the signifi cant correlations between the logPbB and logP bH values suggest that hair can be used as a suitable biomarker of lead exposure.
References
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Book

Worldwide Variation in Human Growth

TL;DR: The first edition, published in 1976, included all known reliable recent results on height, weight, skinfolds and other body measurements from all parts of the globe, and very numerous measurements taken between 1976 and 1988 have been included as well as the results of the large number of new studies made on rate of maturation as evinced by bone age and pubertal development stages as discussed by the authors.
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The decline in blood lead levels in the United States. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES)

TL;DR: A substantial decline in blood lead levels is demonstrated of the entire US population and within selected subgroups of the population and similar declines were found in population subgroups defined by age, sex, race/ethnicity, income level, and urban status.
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Low-level lead exposure and children's IQ : a meta-analysis and search for a threshold

TL;DR: A highly significant association was found between lead exposure and children's IQ and the effect was robust to inclusion or exclusion of the strongest individual studies and to relaxing the age requirements of the meta-analysis.
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Absorption and retention of lead by infants.

TL;DR: Absorption and retention of lead accounted for greater percentages of intake of lead in this study of infants and young children than have been reported in studies of older subjects.
Journal ArticleDOI

Lead toxicity: current concerns.

TL;DR: A brief review identifies major advances as well as a number of current concerns that present opportunities for prevention and intervention strategies in lead toxicity in children and adults.
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