In 1923, lead was first added to gasoline to help keep car engines healthy. However, automotive health came at the great expense of our own well-being. A new study calculates that exposure to car exhaust from leaded gas during childhood altered the balance of mental health in the U.
S. population, making generations of Americans more depressed, anxious and inattentive or hyperactive. The paper "Contribution of Childhood Lead Exposure to Psychopathology in the U.
S. Population over the Past 75 Years," appears in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry . The research estimates that 151 million cases of psychiatric disorder over the past 75 years have resulted from American children's exposure to lead.
The findings, from Aaron Reuben, a postdoctoral scholar in neuropsychology at Duke University, and colleagues at Florida State University, suggest that Americans born before 1996 experienced significantly higher rates of mental health problems as a result of lead, and likely experienced changes to their personalities that would have made them less successful and resilient in life. Leaded gas for cars was banned in the U.S.
in 1996, but the researchers say that anyone born before then, and especially during the peak of its use in the 1960s and 1970s, had concerningly high lead exposures as children. Lead is neurotoxic and can erode brain cells and alter brain function after it enters the body. As such, there is no safe level of exposure at any point in life, health experts say.
