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Published on: January 16, 2013
Blood pressure, left ventricular mass, and lead exposure in battery manufacturing workers
A Tepper1, C Mueller, M Singal
1Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Cincinnati, Ohio 45226, USA. atepper@cdc.gov
Background:
Although debate about the relationship between lead and blood pressure has focused on low environmental lead levels, industrial exposure remains a concern.
Methods:
We measured blood pressure and left ventricular mass (LVM) in 108 battery manufacturing workers, and calculated cumulative and historic average measures of blood lead.
Results:
Diastolic pressure increased with increasing lead levels, with a significant (P = 0.04) 5 mmHg difference in mean pressure between the highest and lowest cumulative exposure levels. Diastolic pressure increased with the log of cumulative lead (P = 0.06). Both hypertension (defined as currently medicated or systolic > 160 mmHg or diastolic > 95 mmHg) and LVM increased nonsignificantly with increasing lead exposure (P-values > or = 0.17 for hypertension and > or = 0.20 for LVM).
Conclusions:
We found a small effect of blood lead on diastolic blood pressure, particularly for a cumulative measure of exposure, but no convincing evidence of associations between lead and other blood-pressure-related outcomes. Published 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
