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Table 4 Estimated daily intake of lead in Japanese

From: Lead in the Japanese living environment

Medium

Environment Agency 2000 [33] (adult)

Aung et al. 2004 [41] (children)

Nakanishi et al. 2006 [9] (children 6 years)

Lead concentration

Inhalation/ingestion rate

Lead concentration

Inhalation/ingestion rate

Lead concentration

Inhalation/ingestion ratea

Atmosphere

0.073 μg/m3

15 m3/day

0.045 μg/m3

8.75 m3/day

0.0253 μg/m3

7.2 m3/day

Inhalationb

1.1 μg/day

0.4 μg/day

0.2 μg/day

Diet

44 μg/day

4.79 μg/day

NA (28.3)d

Drinking water

0.01 μg/L

2 L/day

3.8 μg/L

0.28 L/day

2.3 μg/L

0.28 L/day

Soil

13 μg/g

0.2 g/day (child)

46.4 μg/g

0.1 g/day

13.2 μg/g

0.087 g/day

0.1 g/day (adult)

House dust

–

–

117 μg/g

0.1 g/day

Oralc

45.3 μg/day

21.1 μg/day

31.2 μg/daye

  1. aEstimated ingestion rate for a 6-year-old child is given in the literature. Median or geometric mean is shown in this table
  2. bInhalation = atmospheric lead concentration × inhalation rate
  3. cSum of total oral exposure
  4. dNot specified in the literature. Dietary intake was calculated by subtracting lead intake from water and soil/dust from total oral intake [originally given as 1.3 μg/kg body weight/day (median value) which was multiplied average body weight of 6 years child as 24 kg] and indicated in parenthesis
  5. eThe value was calculated by the present author by using 50 percentile values reported in Nakanishi et al. [9] in which intake or ingestion rate was expressed as distribution; therefore, this value may involve uncertainty