Lead – factors affecting its content in bone tissue

Lead is an element whose presence in the environment results mainly from man’s activities. It infiltrates the bodies of living organisms in many ways; in the human body, it has a multidirectional activity, causing anemia, kidney damage, mental retardation in children, genotoxicity, impaired immune function, damage to the nervous system and an inhibition of heme synthesis. Lead also affects bones; its concentrations there, in contrast to soft tissues, are dependent on exposure and increase throughout ones lifespan. This element is the most often studied and described metal in the bone tissue. The aim of this study was to determine the factors that influence the content of lead in the bone tissue and trace its content in this tissue based on literature data. The analysis of the collected literature showed an incredibly wide range of lead content in human bones was observed. This could be due to the different methods of determination (AAS, ICP-AES, K x-ray fluorescence) and the weight of the sample (dry or wet).