It is known that fasting increases lead absorption in adults and consequently regular meals and snacks are recommended for children to prevent lead poisoning. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Environmental Health demonstrates that having a regular breakfast is associated with lower blood lead levels in children.
Data from the China Jintan Child Cohort Study compared blood lead levels to social factors, eating patterns and intake of micronutrients. While there were no differences in breakfast patterns for age or gender of the child there were differences in blood lead levels. The risk of lead poisoning in boys was almost twice that of girls, and four and five year olds had twice the risk of lead poisoning than three year olds. Nevertheless, when variables, such as age and the gender of the child were taken into account, children who ate a regular breakfast had 15% lower blood lead levels than those who skipped breakfast.
Breakfast habits were determined by family tendencies with both the parents and grandparents of children who ate breakfast tending to be professionals or more educated. Dr Jianghong Liu said, "Parental or caregivers' characteristics, including education and occupation, are major determinants of breakfast frequency. Consequently improving parent's knowledge about the links between nutrition and blood lead might help to prevent lead poisoning in these children."
Media Contact
Dr Hilary Glover
Scientific Press Officer, BioMed Central
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3192 2370
Email: hilary.glover@biomedcentral.com
Notes to Editors
1. Regular Breakfast and Blood Lead Levels among Preschool Children Jianghong Liu, Linda McCauley, Charlene Compher, Chonghuai Yan, Xiaoming Shen, Herbert Needleman and Jennifer A Pinto-Martin Environmental Health (in press)
Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.
Article citation and URL available on request at press@biomedcentral.com on the day of publication.
2. Environmental Health is an open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research articles on all aspects of environmental and occupational medicine and related studies in toxicology and epidemiology.
3. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector.
Journal
Environmental Health