Jash Botanicals Natural Health Corner

Approximately 33% of attention deficit occurrences among U.S. children could be associated with tobacco smoke prior to birth or to lead contact afterward, according to stimulating new research.

Even levels of lead the government deems acceptable seems to increase a child’s threat of having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the study discovered.

The discovery developed on previous research associating attention problems, including ADHD, with childhood lead exposure and smoking during pregnancy and presents one of the first estimates for how much those environmental issues might contribute.

“It is a landmark paper that quantifies the number of cases of ADHD that can be attributed to very important environmental exposures,” said Dr. Leo Trasande, assistant director of the Center for Children’s Health and the Environment at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

To a greater extent, the study reinforces suspicions that low-level lead exposure earlier connected to behavior problems “is in fact associated with ADHD,” said Trasande, who was not included in the research.

The study’s assessment is in line with a National Academy of Sciences report in 2000 that alleged roughly 3% of all developmental and neurological disorders in U.S. children are generated by toxic chemicals and other environmental issues and 25% are instigated by a combination of environmental factors and genetics.

“The findings of this study underscore the profound behavioral health impact of these prevalent exposures and highlight the need to strengthen public health efforts to reduce prenatal tobacco smoke exposure,” said the authors, led by researcher Joe Braun of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

The study was to be circulated online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.