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Published September 1991 | public
Journal Article

Comparative increases of lead and barium with age in human tooth enamel, rib and ulna

Abstract

Lead and Ba in postmortem tooth enamel, rib and ulna of six contemporary people (67–96 years; ave. 80) were shown to exhibit similar accumulations with age in the three different types of osseous tissue: Pb/Ca (wt) = 3.0, 5.2, and 3.9 × 10^(−5) in rib, ulna, and tooth enamel; and Ba/Ca (wt) = 2.4, 2.4, and 1.8 × 10^(−5) in rib, ulna, and tooth enamel, respectively. Mean concentrations of Pb were 11, 19, and 14 μg g^(−1) in rib (ash), ulna (ash), and enamel (dry), respectively. Means for Ba were 8.7, 8.9, and 6.4 μg g^(−1) in rib (ash), ulna (ash), and enamel (dry), respectively. Comparison of Ba in ulna of our 80-year-old subjects with Ba determined by other investigators in bones of younger contemporary populations indicated that Ba accumulates with age at about half the rate of Pb accumulation in bone. Concentrations of Ba in rib, ulna and enamel were positively correlated and similar within an individual, but varied among subjects in proportion to variations in absorptive uptake in portal blood. Barium may diffuse from a blood-dentine source into enamel, where it replaces Ca and accumulates with age. Because of extreme Pb pollution of our 80-year-old subjects and its variation of intake with age, the correlation of Pb in tooth enamel with Pb in bone was more scattered than for Ba. It is shown by means of stable Pb isotopic tracers that: (i) among the three types of osseous tissue, the residence time of Pb is longest in enamel, where it apparently accumulates with age by diffusion with little loss through exchange; and (ii) the residence time of Pb is longer in compact ulna than in trabecular rib, as it accompanies Ca in its osteoblastic transfer from blood to bone and then in its osteoclastic transfer back to blood from bone.

Additional Information

© 1991 Published by Elsevier B.V. Received October 15, 1990; accepted November 2 1990. A major portion of this study was funded by US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Grant PHS4 ES04 291 A-01. Large portions of the study were funded by supplements added to the Grant by The California Institute of Technology. The University of Southern California Medical School provided, from its Willed Body Repository, the samples used in this study. We honor the people who contributed their body tissues to that Repository and made possible this study, which is related to an extremely serious public health matter. They live on in this manner as respected kin within the community of humankind. Experimental contributions to this study were made by Dr Charles Haun, Assoc. Professor, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Southern California Medical School, who arranged for our procurement of all samples and directed selections of subjects and bone autopsies, and by Dr Stephen Wukelich, oral and a maxiofacial surgeon, La Canada, CA, who selected and extracted the teeth. Substantial contributions to interpretations of data in this paper were made by: Dr Melvin Glimsher, Laboratory for Study of Skeletal Disorders, Children's Hospital, ENDERS 11, Boston; Prof. Heinz Lowenstam, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology; Prof. J. Osterloh, Clinical Laboratory Medicine, University of California Northern California Occupational Health Center, San Francisco General Medical Center; Dr Joel G. Pounds, Dept. of Applied Sci., Brookhaven National Laboratory, Associated Universities, INC., Upton, Long Island; Dr John F. Rosen, Montefiore Medical Center, Henry and Lucy Moses Hospital Division, New York; and Dr Lorentze E. Wittmers, Jr, Dept of Physiology, School of Medicine, University of Minnesota-Duluth.

Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 26, 2023