Dietary exposure to lead by children and adults in the Jinhu area of China.

This paper reports an estimate of the dietary intake of lead by children and adults from the Jinhu area in South-eastern China. A duplicate diet approach was used to collect food samples in November and December 2007. The lead content was measured by furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. Median lead intakes for different groups were as follows: children: 1.65 mu g(kg(bw))(-1) day(-1): and adults: 1.10 mu g(kg(bw))(-1) day(-1). No exposure exceeded the provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI) of 25 mu g(kg(bw))(-1) week(-1) proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO). However, median and maximum exposure for the children group amounted to 60.8% and 97.2% of the PTWI, respectively, which were higher than those for adults, which were 40.5% and 86.4%, respectively. It was concluded that health risks due to dietary lead intake seem to be high in Jinhu.