Schwanksta :: Fuzzy Journalism

According to an article in the AP, lead could be responsible for some of the mental decline we’ve come to expect as a “normal” part of aging.

Though careful to avoid giving the theory too much credence, the article says research indicates exposure to high levels of lead in the past can cause anywhere from 2 to 6 years of equivalent mental aging. From the article:

In brief, the scientists found that the higher the lifetime lead dose, the poorer the performance across a wide variety of mental functions, like verbal and visual memory and language ability. From low to high dose, the difference in mental functioning was about the equivalent of aging by two to six years.

“We think that’s a large effect,” Schwartz said.

Hu and his colleagues took a slightly different approach in a 2004 study of 466 men with an average age of 67. Those men took a mental-ability test twice, about four years apart on average. Those with the highest bone lead levels showed more decline between exams than those with smaller levels, with the effect of the lead equal to about five years of aging.

Nobody is claiming that lead is the sole cause of age-related mental decline, but it appears to be one of several factors involved, Hu stressed.

Read the article here.

I know there are a whole host of factors associated with mental decline, and according to the article nobody knows for sure what really causes it, but reading this makes me thankful that my generation has grown up without a lot of the same pollutants (including lead) that even my parents’ generation had to endure.