Expert: Zhang Zheng, Deputy Chief Physician, Guangzhou Haizhu District Center for Disease Control and Prevention
This article was reviewed by Liu Ming, chief physician of Guangdong Provincial Occupational Disease Prevention and Control Hospital
For newborn babies, many elders will wear a pair of silver bracelets on them, hoping that the children can grow up healthy and safe. Others say that silver jewelry can be poisoned, and if there is a toxin in the child's body, the silver jewelry will turn black.
It sounds like the silver bracelet is not small, and recently, the topic #Silver bracelet that makes children stupid # has made people's eyes focus on the fact that "silver bracelets can lead poisoning". Is this true? Today will take you to uncover the truth.
What are the dangers of lead poisoning?
Lead exists in the atmosphere, water, soil, non-ferrous metal mining and smelting industry, lead-containing battery industry, leather and its products industry, decoration materials, toys, cosmetics... Lead and its compounds are widely present in the production and living environment, mainly in the form of dust, smoke or vapor through the respiratory tract into the human body, through the digestive tract and skin absorption is relatively small. Blood lead and lead in breast milk can also enter the offspring through the placenta or lactation. The biological half-life of lead in the human body is 5-10 years, which is mainly excreted through feces and urine, and a small part is excreted through sweat glands, salivary glands and mammary glands.
Whether it is occupational or life contact, whether adults or children, excessive intake can cause lead levels in the blood to exceed the normal range and cause lead poisoning.
Lead poisoning can cause damage to the nervous system, hematopoietic system, digestive system, reproductive system, cardiovascular system, liver, kidney and other multi-system and tissue and organ damage, causing abdominal pain, anemia, fatigue, depression, hypertension, joint pain, reproductive disorders and other symptoms.
Children's digestive tract absorption rate of lead is as high as 50%, which is 5-10 times that of adults, the kidneys' ability to expel lead is significantly lower than that of adults, and it is easy to ingest lead into the body through bad habits such as biting items and sucking fingers, so children are more likely to be led poisoned than adults, especially children aged 0-6 years.
In children, the harm of lead toxicity is more severe and unvaled than in adults. Lead poisoning can cause irreversible damage to the nervous system in children, directly affecting their physical growth and intellectual development. Children with lead poisoning present with irritability, unresponsiveness, mental decline, abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, black stools, insomnia, palpitations, pallor, anemia and other symptoms, and even lead to acute brain injury and death.
Is all silver jewelry poisonous?
Lead has good toughness and ductility, and some manufacturers will add it in the jewelry production process to improve the flexibility and frequency of jewelry, making jewelry more beautiful and reducing production costs.
In the mandatory national standards issued by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the Standardization Administration of the People's Republic of China, the harmful elements in jewelry are limited, and the lead content in jewelry must be less than 1‰, so not all silver jewelry is toxic, and safe and qualified silver jewelry will not cause human poisoning.
Can silver needles test poison?
What the ancients said about the silver needle test poison, what they wanted to detect was actually arsenic, a common poisonous substance in ancient times, that is, arsenic trioxide. The reason why arsenic can be detected by silver jewelry in ancient times is because the process was rough at that time, and the arsenic produced was mixed with sulfur or sulfide, which could chemically react with silver to form a black layer of silver sulfide on the surface of the silver needle. According to the current production and purification technology, silver jewelry can not detect high-purity arsenic at all, and silver jewelry cannot be talked about poisoning.
How can lead poisoning be prevented?
The state restricts the utilization of lead through relevant laws, regulations and standards to reduce environmental lead pollution; enterprises strictly follow the requirements of laws, regulations and standards to do a good job in lead pollution control in project design and construction, equipment process technology, environmental monitoring and inspection, employee protection and guardianship, etc., to reduce occupational lead poisoning.
For ordinary people, how should they protect themselves and the children at home?
Learn to be sophisticated
Correctly and deeply understand the harm of lead, take the initiative to learn relevant knowledge, improve the awareness and ability of protection for yourself and your children, cultivate good hygiene habits, and consciously do a good job in home hygiene, personal hygiene and health monitoring.
Stay away
Live and live as far away as possible from industrial pollution areas or main roads with heavy traffic;
Indoor coal-fired households open windows for ventilation and separate coal-fired areas from other living areas;
Avoid bringing children to the side of the road or in industrially polluted areas with high car traffic;
Avoid passive smoking in children.
Do fine dots
Living in industrially polluted areas or near the main roads of highways with heavy traffic, you should often use a damp cloth to remove dust in the house and where children often touch, cover food and food utensils to prevent dust or place them in cabinets, and regularly clean toys and other items used by children;
Decorate children's rooms as much as possible to select solid wood furniture without paint, and check in after being fully ventilated and tested by professional institutions;
Purchase of precious metal jewelry produced by regular manufacturers and tested by the testing department;
Purchase safe and qualified clothing, tableware, toys and other daily necessities and school supplies;
Avoid children nibbling on lead-containing jewelry, toys or school supplies such as pencils and colored pens;
Regularly take children to the hospital for blood lead testing, and once lead poisoning is found, lead repellent treatment is timely;
Operators who may be exposed to lead (smelters, welding plants, battery factories, cable factories, paint factories, auto repair plants, etc.) should do personal protection according to the degree of lead exposure of the post, avoid wearing work clothes home or washing with family clothes, and do a good job of personal clothing change or cleaning exposed skin before contact with children.
Eat well
Pay attention to dietary balance, avoid eating vegetables and fruits produced in lead-contaminated areas, poultry meat, popcorn, pine blossom eggs and other foods with high lead content, and eat more foods with chelated synthetic milk, sea buckthorn, kiwifruit, kelp, onions and other foods.
Lead poisoning is very harmful to people
When shopping for jewelry such as silver bracelets
To be produced by regular manufacturers,
Passed the test by the testing department
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