Typical daily lead intake from food and drink

3 Typical daily lead intake from food and drink 

The dietary intake of lead has been estimated by a number of methods, the principal ones being firstly the analysis of duplicate portions of meals for total lead and secondly a composite method, whereby typical lead concentrations in the various components of a diet are separately defined and the total lead intake becomes the sum of the lead intakes from the various components, as in Table 7.4. Some of the more recent data, reported since 1970, are summarized in Table 7.5. Clearly there is a high degree of variability in dietary lead intake from individual to individual, as well as from country to country. Typical intakes probably lie in the range 100-200 Mg day for adults and somewhat lower but not proportionately so, for children at 50-150 Mg day - 

Intake of lead into the body (as distinct from uptake into the bloodstream) 

Method Number of subjects Age (years) Sex Country Activity Mean lead intake (Mg day 0 Range of lead intake (Mg day ) Reference 

It has already been noted (Section 2.3) that the concentrations of airborne lead will vary considerably, depending amongst other factors on proximity to traffic, whether indoors or outdoors, time of day etc. Chamberlain and coworkers [10] have assessed the concentration data and assume an average daily exposure concentration for urban dwellers in Britain of 1 jug mT. This concentration would lead to a daily intake of 15-20 jug day L Rural concentrations on the other hand are more typically in the range 0.1-0.2 Mg nf leading to an intake of 1.5-4 Mg day . 

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