Childhood lead linked to adult obesity - research indicates early exposure to lead may increase risk of obesity in adults - Brief Article

Science News, Oct 21, 1995

Many studies have linked low exposures to lead with reduced stature in children. One investigation even found hints of a possible mechanism for this: the heavy metal's inhibition of an individual's secretion of growth hormone (SN: 8/29/92, p.143). Now, a group of researchers has examined the fallout of these youthful exposures to lead. To his surprise, says study leader Rokho Kim of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, he found that in 20-year-olds, early lead exposures were more strongly linked to weight than to height.

The team studied 79 young adults whose tooth reservoirs of lead--a measure of youthful exposure--had been assayed at about age 7. In the new study, Kim's group reassessed lead stores in the body, this time using an X-ray fluorescence technique (SN: 2/18/89, p.111) on the shin and kneecap.

Overall, the researchers found, adults who had taken in the most lead as children also gained the most weight (relative to their height) between the ages of 7 and 20. Indeed, Kim notes, some of the subjects with highest exposures were obese.

"If our finding is replicable and robust, the ramifications are significant," his team argues in the October Environmental Health Perspectives. Both excess weight and high concentrations of lead in the body (SN: 9/3/88, p.158) have been associated with high blood pressure in adults. This suggests, Kim says, that lead's link to high blood pressure--a major risk factor for heart disease--may actually reflect its apparent role in weight gain.