Relation of cumulative low-level lead exposure to depressive and phobic anxiety symptom scores in middle-age and elderly women.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Different lines of evidence suggest that low-level lead exposure could be a modifiable risk factor for adverse psychological symptoms, but little work has explored this relation.

Objective

We assessed whether bone lead--a biomarker of cumulative lead exposure--is associated with depression and anxiety symptoms among middle-age and elderly women.

Methods

Participants were 617 Nurses' Health Study participants with K-shell X-ray fluorescence bone lead measures and who had completed at last one Mental Health Index 5-item scale (MHI-5) and the phobic anxiety scale of the Crown-Crisp Index (CCI) assessment at mean ± SD age of 59 ± 9 years (range, 41-83 years). With exposure expressed as tertiles of bone lead, we analyzed MHI-5 scores as a continuous variable usi

SUBMITTER: Eum KD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3385437 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature