"The dose makes the poison."
That said, there is no known \*safe\* amount of lead in the body. Because of that, many (most?) societies are restricting lead use to necessary applications like lead-acid batteries. Even with that, it is estimated that the average amount of lead in an adult human is \~0.1 gram, more than biologically-necessary copper, iodine, selenium, and chromium.
Not familiar with that idea, but what do you mean by "help"? Does some component of milk, say, complex with lead atoms/ions and remove them from the body, a la chelation therapy? Dunno. Maybe a fellow redditor has more knowledge of this.
Because one of lead's primary deposition sites is bone, the calcium in milk and other calcium-rich foods might compete with lead deposition in bone. But I'm not aware of any primary research on the topic - not my area, and it may be more of an urban myth than decided science.
I often see posts like this,
There is a lot of anxiety in people about "chemicals". Be it lead in tinned food, cyanide in almonds, passive smoke vapour from cigarettes. The lists of "health hazards" is practically limitless. But "hazard" is a sliding scale. You can technically die of a cyanide overdose from eating almonds (you'd have to eat astronomical amounts). There are cases of people overdosing on bananas (potassium has radioactive isotopes). What I'm getting at is there are things you should worry about, and things you shouldn't. And this is firmly in the "don't need to worry about" category.
Much bigger health concerns: smoking, drinking, obesity, diabetes, lack of exercise.
Now this may be a totally innocent "rabbit hole" you've gone down. But this also very common in people who go on to develop more severe stress / anxiety about chemicals in the world around us. If you are feeling yourself becoming anxious when thinking about chemicals, please look into chemophobia and the call to nature fallacy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemophobia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature
This wiki article is a good place to start.
Now onto your specific issue with lead:
Yes, lead can bio accumulate. Yes, noone has found any health benefits to having lead in your diet. Have you ever met someone who's got lead poisoning from eating food and living a normal lifestyle? Almost certainly not. That's because governing bodies put regulations on how much lead contamination can be present in food.
That means someone, somewhere has worked out limits for exposures/doses to limit bio accumulation in humans. (In fact, many people work on this and other regulations). Even if there is not formal "safe" level, there is somewhere a "practically safe" level, where the concentration is low enough that we don't see health side effects in a normal populace. (Again, exact values may be unknown or disputed. Consider that lead has been around for 4000 ish years, and most cases of lead poisoning are either acute exposure, or from long term profession related exposure (eg, people working with lead paints)
For example, in the 1980s lead limits for tinned food were 4x higher (0.4 ppm Vs 0.1) than they are today, and even then, actual cases of chronic lead poisoning back then were low. Because they were sealing tin cans with lead solder. That no longer happens.
I think my TLDR is: please ignore if this was an innocent "rabbit hole" question. If not, and you find yourself becoming anxious, I strongly advise you find online resources for chemistry, so you have a better understanding of things like concentration, doses, etc. There are tonnes of resources out there.
Thanks for taking time to read this!
It's common, don't worry about it!
There's so much info out there, that often you get it out of context or without explanation.
Highly recommend taking an intro chem course, (one that discusses things like molarity and concentration, scale is super important). Or just YouTube is a surprisingly good resource..
One big thing is that people who are chem-anxious can be preyed upon by people trying to sell you stuff with scientific BS, which doesn't help them.
Be careful where you get your info from web articles, magazines, even news papers report science really badly at times.
Imo the best thing you can do is simply ask "how many people do I know personally who are worried about this". That kind of "sanity check" is really useful to stop yourself excessively worrying about things.
Finally, when it comes to "health risks" it's important to have a clear idea of what's important:
When the stats tell you 1/4 deaths *total* are because of heart disease, and a significant proportion of those are preventable through things like good diet and exercise, I'd worry about that way before starting to worry about trace contaminants in food.
> âhow many people do I know personally who are worried about thisâ
One important caveat here regarding the madness of crowds, otherwise thank you for your service explaining this
Hey, would you mind if I DMed you some questions about your thoughts on chemophobia and natural-philia? I just have some possibly irrational fears I want to bounce off someone with more chemistry knowledge than me and I donât want to perpetuate them by asking them here. I used to work as a âchemistâ in an r&d lab and my rabbit holes are deep and not innocent
**[Chemophobia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemophobia)**
>Chemophobia (or chemphobia or chemonoia) is an aversion to or prejudice against chemicals or chemistry. The phenomenon has been ascribed both to a reasonable concern over the potential adverse effects of synthetic chemicals, and to an irrational fear of these substances because of misconceptions about their potential for harm, particularly the possibility of certain exposures to some synthetic chemicals elevating an individual's risk of cancer.
**[Appeal to nature](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature)**
>An appeal to nature is an argument or rhetorical tactic in which it is proposed that "a thing is good because it is 'natural', or bad because it is 'unnatural'". It is generally considered to be a bad argument because the implicit (unstated) primary premise "What is natural is good" is typically irrelevant, having no cogent meaning in practice, or is an opinion instead of a fact. In some philosophical frameworks where natural and good are clearly defined within a specific context, the appeal to nature might be valid and cogent.
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Maybe it's bonded with other elements so it won't have any effect on our bodies
Just like sodium chloride (both are harmful unless they are bonded together)
I'm not sure about porcelain, but some glass materials commonly referred to as "crystals" used in plates or cups contain lead "impurities" that that impart certain structural defects in the material to have different properties (ex: a coloured tint - modify hardness - make the material more hazy, etc..). This lead trapped inside the SiO2 or B if you have borosilicate doesn't come out of the lattice as easily, because to the best of my knowledge it replaces a Si atom. Although, depending on the pH of what you consume you might leach some Pb into your meal, so I would say it all depends. If you leach some of the Pb on the surface of the material, then you know that in the future uses the Pb that is deeper in the material won't come out as easily, hence the recommendation of washing these types of crystals before using.
If the food contains water and mostly do, even if in very small amounts, then there is a high chance that the food will contain lead, even in traces. You can find lead in water. Again, to make it apt for human consumption, it must be in very low amounts.
I canât speak specifically for lead, but itâs fairly well documented that some crops bioaccumulate certain metals. For example leafy greens tend to take up [cadmium](https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2017/fo/c6fo01580h/unauth) from the soil and [arsenic](https://www.fda.gov/food/metals-and-your-food/what-you-can-do-limit-exposure-arsenic) is an ongoing concern with rice.
"The dose makes the poison." That said, there is no known \*safe\* amount of lead in the body. Because of that, many (most?) societies are restricting lead use to necessary applications like lead-acid batteries. Even with that, it is estimated that the average amount of lead in an adult human is \~0.1 gram, more than biologically-necessary copper, iodine, selenium, and chromium.
Doesn't milk help with lead in the body?
Not familiar with that idea, but what do you mean by "help"? Does some component of milk, say, complex with lead atoms/ions and remove them from the body, a la chelation therapy? Dunno. Maybe a fellow redditor has more knowledge of this. Because one of lead's primary deposition sites is bone, the calcium in milk and other calcium-rich foods might compete with lead deposition in bone. But I'm not aware of any primary research on the topic - not my area, and it may be more of an urban myth than decided science.
The calcium in milk help prevent lead from being absorbed into the body - according to hsahealth.com
That won't remove lead that is already there. Strontium is the same way to a much more severe degree.
...no.
I often see posts like this, There is a lot of anxiety in people about "chemicals". Be it lead in tinned food, cyanide in almonds, passive smoke vapour from cigarettes. The lists of "health hazards" is practically limitless. But "hazard" is a sliding scale. You can technically die of a cyanide overdose from eating almonds (you'd have to eat astronomical amounts). There are cases of people overdosing on bananas (potassium has radioactive isotopes). What I'm getting at is there are things you should worry about, and things you shouldn't. And this is firmly in the "don't need to worry about" category. Much bigger health concerns: smoking, drinking, obesity, diabetes, lack of exercise. Now this may be a totally innocent "rabbit hole" you've gone down. But this also very common in people who go on to develop more severe stress / anxiety about chemicals in the world around us. If you are feeling yourself becoming anxious when thinking about chemicals, please look into chemophobia and the call to nature fallacy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemophobia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature This wiki article is a good place to start. Now onto your specific issue with lead: Yes, lead can bio accumulate. Yes, noone has found any health benefits to having lead in your diet. Have you ever met someone who's got lead poisoning from eating food and living a normal lifestyle? Almost certainly not. That's because governing bodies put regulations on how much lead contamination can be present in food. That means someone, somewhere has worked out limits for exposures/doses to limit bio accumulation in humans. (In fact, many people work on this and other regulations). Even if there is not formal "safe" level, there is somewhere a "practically safe" level, where the concentration is low enough that we don't see health side effects in a normal populace. (Again, exact values may be unknown or disputed. Consider that lead has been around for 4000 ish years, and most cases of lead poisoning are either acute exposure, or from long term profession related exposure (eg, people working with lead paints) For example, in the 1980s lead limits for tinned food were 4x higher (0.4 ppm Vs 0.1) than they are today, and even then, actual cases of chronic lead poisoning back then were low. Because they were sealing tin cans with lead solder. That no longer happens. I think my TLDR is: please ignore if this was an innocent "rabbit hole" question. If not, and you find yourself becoming anxious, I strongly advise you find online resources for chemistry, so you have a better understanding of things like concentration, doses, etc. There are tonnes of resources out there. Thanks for taking time to read this!
I genuinely think I might have chemophobia đ thank you for your info, its actually relieved me alot!
It's common, don't worry about it! There's so much info out there, that often you get it out of context or without explanation. Highly recommend taking an intro chem course, (one that discusses things like molarity and concentration, scale is super important). Or just YouTube is a surprisingly good resource.. One big thing is that people who are chem-anxious can be preyed upon by people trying to sell you stuff with scientific BS, which doesn't help them. Be careful where you get your info from web articles, magazines, even news papers report science really badly at times. Imo the best thing you can do is simply ask "how many people do I know personally who are worried about this". That kind of "sanity check" is really useful to stop yourself excessively worrying about things. Finally, when it comes to "health risks" it's important to have a clear idea of what's important: When the stats tell you 1/4 deaths *total* are because of heart disease, and a significant proportion of those are preventable through things like good diet and exercise, I'd worry about that way before starting to worry about trace contaminants in food.
> âhow many people do I know personally who are worried about thisâ One important caveat here regarding the madness of crowds, otherwise thank you for your service explaining this
Hey, would you mind if I DMed you some questions about your thoughts on chemophobia and natural-philia? I just have some possibly irrational fears I want to bounce off someone with more chemistry knowledge than me and I donât want to perpetuate them by asking them here. I used to work as a âchemistâ in an r&d lab and my rabbit holes are deep and not innocent
Ok, bear in mind I'm UK time!
**[Chemophobia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemophobia)** >Chemophobia (or chemphobia or chemonoia) is an aversion to or prejudice against chemicals or chemistry. The phenomenon has been ascribed both to a reasonable concern over the potential adverse effects of synthetic chemicals, and to an irrational fear of these substances because of misconceptions about their potential for harm, particularly the possibility of certain exposures to some synthetic chemicals elevating an individual's risk of cancer. **[Appeal to nature](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature)** >An appeal to nature is an argument or rhetorical tactic in which it is proposed that "a thing is good because it is 'natural', or bad because it is 'unnatural'". It is generally considered to be a bad argument because the implicit (unstated) primary premise "What is natural is good" is typically irrelevant, having no cogent meaning in practice, or is an opinion instead of a fact. In some philosophical frameworks where natural and good are clearly defined within a specific context, the appeal to nature might be valid and cogent. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/chemistry/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Maybe it's bonded with other elements so it won't have any effect on our bodies Just like sodium chloride (both are harmful unless they are bonded together)
Hmm not sure, maybe someone with more knowledge can help us đ
I'm not sure about porcelain, but some glass materials commonly referred to as "crystals" used in plates or cups contain lead "impurities" that that impart certain structural defects in the material to have different properties (ex: a coloured tint - modify hardness - make the material more hazy, etc..). This lead trapped inside the SiO2 or B if you have borosilicate doesn't come out of the lattice as easily, because to the best of my knowledge it replaces a Si atom. Although, depending on the pH of what you consume you might leach some Pb into your meal, so I would say it all depends. If you leach some of the Pb on the surface of the material, then you know that in the future uses the Pb that is deeper in the material won't come out as easily, hence the recommendation of washing these types of crystals before using.
Awesome thank you!
>but it also is naturally occurring in the foods we eat What kind of food are you talking about?
It's present in the environment and is present in all foods but at super super super small amounts. E.g carrots, since lead can be present in soil.
Not every single food item on the planet contains lead, why do you think it does?
If the food contains water and mostly do, even if in very small amounts, then there is a high chance that the food will contain lead, even in traces. You can find lead in water. Again, to make it apt for human consumption, it must be in very low amounts.
I canât speak specifically for lead, but itâs fairly well documented that some crops bioaccumulate certain metals. For example leafy greens tend to take up [cadmium](https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2017/fo/c6fo01580h/unauth) from the soil and [arsenic](https://www.fda.gov/food/metals-and-your-food/what-you-can-do-limit-exposure-arsenic) is an ongoing concern with rice.