Isotope ratios of lead in Japanese women’s hair of the twentieth century

Abstract

Isotope ratios as well as Pb concentration in the hair samples of the twentieth century varied to a considerable extent depending on the period of hair cut. The oldest hair samples (1910-1920s) had the highest concentration and the most distinct isotope ratios from those of Japanese domestic Pb indicating serious contamination of proximate environment of people of those days with Pb originated from mines in other regions of the world, probably through the usage of Pb-containing face powder. The concentration and isotope ratios of Pb decreased thereafter indicating less serious contamination of proximate environment of Japanese which, in turn, should have affected by environmental contamination of mid-twentieth century due to industrial activities and leaded gasoline. Contemporary Pb level was quite low (<1 mg/kg); however, isotope ratios were close to those in 1960s when hair concentration was assumed to be strongly affected by leaded gasoline.

Tracking mobility using human hair: What can we learn from lead and strontium isotopes?

“…The same goes for any type of food. The isotope ratios of these elements have been used in numerous previous studies ranging from monitoring the lead contamination of a population [3] to tracing an individual's movement with strontium [4].…”

“…An additional layer of complexity comes with the fact that globalization of markets reduced the isotope discrimination of commercial lead sources to a minimum because of worldwide distribution of metals of various geographical origins [21]. Anthropogenic sources of lead include soils, gasoline, incinerators, paints, smelters and historically, make-up compounds [3,[21][22][23][24][25][26]. Lead is incorporated into the body in the same manner as strontium, with about 99% being stored in bones where they are substituting for the Ca positions in apatite ( [1] and references therein).…”

Monitoring Lead (Pb) Pollution and Identifying Pb Pollution Sources in Japan Using Stable Pb Isotope Analysis with Kidneys of Wild Rats

“…It has been reported that people in pre-industrialized Japan were highly contaminated with Pb of domestic origin [ 19 ]. By contrast, after industrialization, which was accompanied by the import of foreign Pb-containing materials including leaded gasoline, pollution with foreign Pb, Pb-IRs of which differ from domestic materials, occurred [ 19 , 20 ]. Recent studies focused on the contemporary Pb level in Japanese human samples reported relatively low concentrations of Pb in cord blood [ 21 ], children’s blood [ 22 ], and women’s hair [ 20 ].…”

“…By contrast, after industrialization, which was accompanied by the import of foreign Pb-containing materials including leaded gasoline, pollution with foreign Pb, Pb-IRs of which differ from domestic materials, occurred [ 19 , 20 ]. Recent studies focused on the contemporary Pb level in Japanese human samples reported relatively low concentrations of Pb in cord blood [ 21 ], children’s blood [ 22 ], and women’s hair [ 20 ]. However, the maximum weekly intake per kg body weight (bw) for a five-year-old Japanese child was surprisingly revealed to be 26 µg/kg bw [ 23 ].…”

Comparison of 265 nm Femtosecond and 213 nm Nanosecond Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry for Pb Isotope Ratio Measurements

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] The Pb is certainly the most powerful among radiogenic elements available with respect to isotope geochemists, because it has three radiogenic isotopes whose precursors of U and Th are relatively short half-lives and are very different from each other, and the chemistry of Pb is also quite different from that of its precursors. Laser ablation multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICPMS) has already been accepted as a suitable tool for precise isotopic microanalysis in solid samples at scales down to about 5 -100 μm; since the MC-ICPMS can achieve simultaneous multi-isotope measurements by its multi-collector even though the number of detector is limited.…”