Environmental and Occupational Risk Factors Effect to Arterial Hypertension: Correlation between Arterial Hypertension and Lead

Abstract

The main risk factors for hypertension include smoking, the consumption of alcohol, poor dietary habits, lack of exercise, and stress. Scientists have also linked exposure to lead as a risk factor for hypertension. Chemicals are fundamental negative factors for occupational health as they penetrate an organism through the respiratory tract in the state of vapors, gases, dust, and others. There is high correlation between the concentration of chemicals in the environment and time spent of exposure to the chemicals. Some chemicals compounds penetrate through the respiratory tract and irritate the upper respiratory track and lung lobes. They have different influences depending on their solubility. Lead has a harmful effect on organism when it is in higher doses than normal. It exerts an especially harmful effect upon the nervous and circulatory systems. Sources of environmental lead pollution are benzene, coal, paints containing lead, and some working conditions. A population based case controlling model of an analytic study was used. For the study data analysis SPSS 20.0 program were applied single and combined risk factors were accounted by regressive investigation method and results gained were expressed by odds ratio and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) p value. The goal is to assess the correlation of lead to arterial hypertension among miners of the Gobi region provinces. In the sampling we employed a random collection method with collection ratio of 1:2. One hundred miners with hypertension took part in the study. In the control group people without hypertension were assigned and they were of the same age and sex with the experimental group. Among the participants, those of working age had a high prevalence of hypertension and the disease is beginning to affect those of a younger age as well. 82% of those in the experimental group work in hard working conditions and 86% of them work for an average of 11.3 hours in noisy and dusty conditions. The increase of blood-lead content greatly depends on service length. Miners with arterial hypertension who worked for many years had a high content of lead in their blood. Lead content in the air outside of working places has a weak correlation (r = 0.3) with hypertension among those in the experimental group and was statistically significant (p = 0.007). With an increased blood-lead content, a risk for arterial hypertension (AH) increased two times (OR = 2.11 [95% CL; 1.52 - 2.94], p = 0.0001). But lead content in drinking water has an inversely associated with hypertension.