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Your Environment. Your Health.

Final Progress Reports: Harvard School of Public Health: Controlled Trial in Pregnancy of Dietary Supplements for the Suppression of Bone Resorption and Mobilization of Lead into Plasma

Superfund Research Program

Controlled Trial in Pregnancy of Dietary Supplements for the Suppression of Bone Resorption and Mobilization of Lead into Plasma

Project Leader: Howard Hu
Grant Number: P42ES005947
Funding Period: 1995 - 2006

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Final Progress Reports

Year:   2005  1999 

Project investigators continued to follow the children who have been studied since birth along with their mothers and continued to analyze data of lead biological dose markers in relation to infant and child outcomes. In the study of anemia in relation to iron deficiency that was inspired by project work on nutrition and lead, researchers found that iron deficiency anemia is associated with higher blood lead levels in children, even when the exposures are relatively modest. The study of determinants of maternal bone and blood lead levels among participants in Mexico City found that levels of blood lead in women who breast fed were higher than in women who did not breast-feed. This is consistent with the hypothesis that environmental exposure to lead over the life course would result in increased bone lead, but that during periods of enhanced bone resorption (such as lactation) bone stores of lead would be released into the blood.

Investigation of maternal-fetal biological markers of lead dose in relation to infant head circumference and length showed that maternal bone lead (but not maternal blood lead) predicts smaller head circumference and birth length. The findings on lead biomarkers in relation to velocity of infant growth showed that maternal bone lead predicts decreased gains in birth weight between birth and one month of age. Influences on umbilical cord blood lead levels were described using structural equation modeling providing a framework for understanding the relative influences of exogenous and endogenous sources of lead to fetal lead exposure.

Additionally, intake of calcium supplements was associated with 15% lower blood lead levels among lactating women. Finally, this project supported the continuation of methodological work on refining K-x-ray fluorescence measurements of bone lead, as well as the use of measurements of lead to elucidate aspects of lead toxicity elsewhere in Mexico and Latin America.

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