Lead in Albacore: Guide to Lead Pollution in Americans

TLDR

Lead contamination in canned tuna, exceeding natural levels by 10,000‑fold, went undetected for decades and explains the markedly higher dietary and skeletal lead concentrations in modern Americans compared to prehistoric populations. The study aims to investigate how this unrecognized lead poisoning may affect most Americans, given that biochemical dysfunction scales with exposure.

Abstract

Lead contamination in canned tuna, exceeding natural concentrations 10,000-fold, went undiscovered for decades because of analytical error. The magnitude of this pollution effect helps explain the difference between the lead concentration in the diets of present-day Americans (0.2 part per million) and in the diets of prehistoric peoples (estimated to be less than 0.002 part per million). It also explains how skeletal concentrations of lead in typical Americans became elevated 500-fold above the natural concentrations measured in bones of Peruvians who lived in an unpolluted environment 1800 years ago. It has been tacitly assumed that natural biochemical effects of lead in human cells have been studied, but this is not so because reagents, nutrients, and controls used in laboratory and field studies have been unknowingly contaminated with lead far in excess of naturally occurring levels. An unrecognized form of poisoning caused by this excessive exposure to lead may affect most Americans because magnitudes of biochemical dysfunctions are proportional to degrees of exposure.