Leaded Gasoline Calculated to Steal Over 800 Million Cumulative IQ Points Since the 1940s-ScienceDaily

According to a new study, exposure to car exhaust from leaded gas as a child totals 822,400 from more than 170 million Americans living today, about half the population of the United States. I stole 10,000 IQ points.

A study by Aaron Ruben, a PhD candidate in clinical psychology at Duke University, and a colleague at Florida State University found that Americans born before 1996 were lead-related, including faster aging of the brain. It suggests that the risk of health problems may be high. Leaded gas for automobiles was banned in the United States in 1996, but researchers found that those born before the end of that era, especially those who were at their peak in the 1960s and 1970s, He said he had high lead exposure that was of concern as a child.

The team’s paper was published in the journal on the week of March 7th. Minutes of the National Academy of Sciences.

Lead is a neurotoxin and can erode brain cells after it enters the body. Therefore, according to health experts, there is no safe level of exposure at any point in life. Toddlers are particularly vulnerable to the ability of lead to impair brain development and reduce cognitive ability. Unfortunately, regardless of age, our brains are not equipped to keep it away.

“Lead can reach the bloodstream when it is inhaled, ingested, or consumed in the water as dust,” Ruben said. “In the bloodstream, you can cross the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain, which is very good at keeping many toxins and pathogens away from the brain, but not all.”

One of the main methods used for lead to enter the bloodstream was by car exhaust.

Reuben, a professor of sociology at Florida State University, and his co-author to answer the complex question that leaded gas use for over 70 years may have left a lasting mark on human health. Some Michael McFarland and Mathew Hauer have a fairly simple strategy.

They use publicly available data on US childhood blood lead levels, leaded gas use, and demographics to cover the lifelong lead exposure of all Americans living in 2015. I have determined the possibility of burden. Calculate IQ points lost from leaded gas exposure as a substitute for harmful effects on public health.

The researchers were surprised at the result.

“Frankly, I was shocked,” McFarland said. “And when I look at the numbers, I’m ready, but I’m still shocked.”

As of 2015, more than 170 million Americans (more than half of the US population) were clinically concerned about blood lead levels as a child, resulting in lower IQ and other long-term May increase the risk of health problems, shrinking brain size, increasing the likelihood of mental illness, increasing cardiovascular disease in adulthood, etc.

Leaded gasoline consumption increased rapidly in the early 1960s and peaked in the 1970s. As a result, Ruben and his colleagues found that basically everyone born in the last 20 years is almost guaranteed to be exposed to harmful levels of lead from car exhaust. Did.

Even more surprising was the sacrifice of lead to intelligence. Lead exposure as a child could have slowed the US cumulative IQ score by an estimated 824 million points (an average of nearly 3 points per person). Researchers have found that, in the worst case, people born in the mid-to-late 1960s could have lost up to six IQ points, and children are at the current minimum level to initiate clinical concerns. We calculated that we have the highest level of lead in our blood, which is eight times higher. It gets worse and can lose more than 7 IQ points on average.

Dropping some IQ points may seem negligible, but the authors write that these changes affect people with sub-average cognitive abilities (IQ score less than 85) with intellectual disability (IQ score 70). It states that it is so dramatic that it can be classified as less than). ..

In the future, McFarland will be exposed to lead more often than white children, hoping to highlight the health inequality suffered by high-dose black children. We are analyzing the racial disparity of.

Reuben’s next step is the long-term effects of past lead exposure on old-age brain health, based on previous findings that adults with high childhood lead exposure may accelerate brain aging. Is to investigate the impact.

“Millions of us roam with a history of lead exposure,” Ruben said. “I haven’t been in a car accident and my rotator cuff tear has healed. It’s like an insult to my body in the various ways we’re still trying to understand, but it’s possible. To life. Impact. “