(NewsNation) — Exposure to lead in gasoline over the past 75 years could be to blame for an estimated 151 million mental health disorders, a study released Wednesday found.
“More than half of the current U.S. population was exposed to adverse lead levels in childhood as a result of lead’s past use in gasoline,” the researchers wrote in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
Leaded gasoline in the U.S. was banned in 1996, but many cars ran on unleaded fuel by the 1980s.
The researchers sought to determine the relationship between childhood lead exposure and mental health diagnoses by analyzing blood lead levels and historic leaded gasoline data between 1940 and 2015.
They found that lead exposure in gasoline caused anxiety, depression, ADHD and personality differences.
“A significant burden of mental illness symptomatology and disadvantageous personality differences can be attributed to U.S. children’s exposure to lead over the past 75 years,” the authors said. “Lead’s potential contribution to psychiatry, medicine and children’s health may be larger than previously assumed.”
The demographic most affected was Generation X, people born between 1966 and 1986.
