Correlation between urine and blood concentrations, and dietary intake of cadmium and lead among women in the general population of Japan.
OBJECTIVE
To examine whether lead (Pb) in urine and cadmium (Cd) in blood, especially the former, can be used as markers of environmental exposure of general populations to these metals.


METHODS
Between 1991 and 1998, spot urine and peripheral blood samples, together with 24 h duplicates of food intake were collected from 607 non-smoking adult women in 30 survey sites (SS) in seven administrative regions all over Japan. Urine, blood and food duplicate samples were analyzed by inductively-coupled plasma spectrometry, for Cd and Pb in urine (Cd-U and Pb-U), in blood (Cd-B and Pb-B) and in food duplicates (Cd-F and Pb-F). Correlation between the measurements was examined by regression analysis.


RESULTS
The Cd-B correlated closely with Cd-U, and both Cd-B and Cd-U with Cd-F, on an individual basis (n = 607), on an SS basis (n = 30) and on a regional basis (n = 7). The Pb-U however did not correlate with Pb-B on a regional basis although they correlated with each other when analyzed on an individual as well as SS basis. Moreover, the correlation coefficients between Pb-U and Pb-B were much smaller than those between Cd-U and Cd-B. Neither Pb-U nor Pb-B showed significant correlation with Pb-F on any levels of statistical analysis.


CONCLUSIONS
Both Cd-B and Cd-U can be employed as biomarkers of environmental Cd exposure. The reliability of Pb-U for use in place of Pb-B appeared to be small.
Shimbo
S
S
Department of Food and Nutrition, Kyoto Women's University, Japan.
Zhang
Z W
ZW
Moon
C S
CS
Watanabe
T
T
Nakatsuka
H
H
Matsuda-Inoguchi
N
N
Higashikawa
K
K
Ikeda
M
M
D000328:Adult; D002104:Cadmium / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000097:blood* / Q000652:urine*; D004032:Diet; D005260:Female; D005504:Food Analysis; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D007854:Lead / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000097:blood* / Q000652:urine*; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods; D008875:Middle Aged; D011159:Population Surveillance; D012044:Regression Analysis
D002104:Cadmium; D007854:Lead