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Won, Kim, Lee, and Sunwoo: The change of blood lead levels in menopausal women and its association with relevant factors
Original Article
Korean Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology

Korean Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology 2012; 55(4): 250-256.

Published online: 17 April 2012

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5468/KJOG.2012.55.4.250

The change of blood lead levels in menopausal women and its association with relevant factors

Seong Youn Won, MD1, Nam Soo Kim, PhD2, Byung Kook Lee, MD2, Jae Gun Sunwoo, MD1

1Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Soonchunhyang Cheonan Hospital, Soonchunhyang University College of Medicine, Cheonan, Korea.

2Institute of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Soonchunhyang University, Asan, Korea.

Corresponding author: Jae Gun Sunwoo, MD. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Soonchunhyang Chunan Hospital, Soonchunhyang University College of Medicine, 31 Suncheonhyang 6-gil, Dongnam-gu, Cheonan 330-930, Korea. Tel: +82-41-570-2150, Fax: +82-41-571-7887, jgsunwoo@schmc.ac.kr

Received 9 November 2011       Revised 3 February 2012       Accepted 6 March 2012

Copyright © 2012. Korean Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Objective

This study assessed blood lead in women in relation to menopause and its association with other related relevant factors to evaluate the impact of menopausal status on blood lead levels in women.

Methods

Eighty three menopausal women and 52 premenopausal women without known occupational lead exposure were included. Blood lead was measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and Lutenizing hormone (LH) were measured in addition to hemoglobin, hematocrit and body mass index as an study variables. Information on smoking and drinking status were also obtained.

Results

The mean (95% confidence intervals) level of blood lead in menopausal women was 2.27 µg/dL (2.12-2.41 µg/dL) which was significantly higher than premenopausal women (1.89 µg/dL, 1.76-2.02 µg/dL), but there was no statistical difference of mean blood levels between perimenopausal and postmenopausal women. In a multivariate regression analysis after adjusting for age, body mass index hemoglobin, drinking and smoking status, only menopausal status was a significant predictor of increases in log transformed blood lead without any significant contribution of FSH and LH.

Conclusion

These results confirmed that menopausal status was associated with significant increase of blood lead levels in Korean women who were not occupationally exposed to lead.

Keywords: Blood lead, Premenopause, Perimenopause, Postmenopause, Follicle-stimulating hormone, Lutenizing hormone

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1
Mean and standard deviation grouped by number of child and menopausal status.
kjog-55-250-g001
Table 1
Summary table of study variables by menopausal status
kjog-55-250-i001

Values are presented as mean (95% confidence interval).

Table 2
Correaltion matrix of study variables
kjog-55-250-i002

BMI, body mass index; logPbB, log transformed blood lead; Hb, hemoglobin; Hct, hematocrit; DBP, Diastolic blood pressure; SBP, Systolic blood pressure; FSH, follicle-stimulating hormone; LH, luteinizing hormone.

Table 3
Multiple regression analysis on log transformed blood lead with selected study variables
kjog-55-250-i003

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