Estimation of Dietary Pb and Cd Intake from Pb and Cd in Blood or Urine

Abstract

Successful trials were made to estimate the dietary daily intake of lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd) via foods from the levels of the metals in blood or urine. In practice, 14 and 15 reports were available for Pb and Cd in blood (Pb-B and Cd-B), urine (Pb-U and Cd-U) and 24-h diet duplicates (Pb-D and Cd-D), respectively, from which 68 pairs each of Pb or Cd in blood and food duplicates [each being geometric mean (GM) values for the survey sites] were obtained. Regression analysis revealed that there was a significant correlation between Pb-B and Pb-D, and also between Cd-B and Cd-D, suggesting that it should be possible to estimate both Pb-D and Cd-D from Pb-B and Cd-B, respectively. For Cd-U, the number of available cases was limited (20 pairs), but a significant correlation was detected between Cd-U (as Cd-U(cr), or Cd levels in urine as corrected for creatinine concentration) and Cd-D. Care should be taken in estimating Pb-D from Pb-B, as the ratio of Pb-D over Pb-B may decrease as a function of increasing Pb-B levels. The Pb-D (μg/day) for typical Japanese women with Pb-B of 15 μg/l was best estimated to be 13.5 μg/day. No Cd-B- or Cd-U(cr)-dependent change was detected in case of Cd. The best estimate of Cd-D for Cd-B at 1.5 μg/l should be about 19.4 μg/day.