New research from the University of Michigan reinforces why it’s important to keep kids from being exposed to lead.
It’s long been known that relatively high blood lead levels can negatively affect children’s IQ.
This study finds it can also affect a child’s motor skills.
Dr. Howard Hu, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Michigan, studied children between the ages of three and seven in Chennai, India. Half the children studied had relatively high levels of lead in their blood. Those children tested significantly lower on motor skill tests… like using peg boards and copying pictures… than children with far less exposure to lead.
Dr. Hu says the Indian children’s blood lead levels are about two to three times that of American children. Lead is still a problem in Michigan, with children still being exposed to aging lead paint in homes, lead in pipes, and lead contamination in soil.
