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A new study shows that moderate lead exposure is linked with hearing loss in teens. Importantly, the study's dangerous blood-metal content levels are far below those that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deem acceptable: anything below 10 micrograms per deciliter.
The study looked at a nationally representative survey of 2500 teens between 12 and 19 who were given blood and urine tests and were tested for hearing. Hearing loss was defined as not being able to hear anything below 15 decibels, which is approximately a whisper. One in five of the participants had hearing loss, and the incidence was correlated with blood-lead levels. Those with more than two micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood had the most hearing loss -- 31%. (One in twenty participants fell into this category of blood-lead level -- a relatively small proportion.) On the other hand, those with less than one microgram per deciliter had 17% hearing loss.
Although studies show that other heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium, and mercury were linked with hearing loss in animals, cadmium was somewhat linked in this study, although researchers were not entirely confident on this count, and neither mercury nor arsenic were linked to hearing loss.
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