+44-7360-538437- Biomedical Research (2008) Volume 19, Issue 1
Evaluation of lead toxicity and antioxidants in battery workers
Oxidative damage has been proposed as one of the possible mechanisms involved in Pb toxicity. To investigate this hypothesis we estimated various blood antioxidants in 25 bat-tery workers. Lead was analysed by Anodic stripping voltametry (ASV), all other parame-ters by spectrophotometric methods. Lead level was significantly high in battery workers (p=0.000). Erythrocyte superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity significantly decreased (p=0.00), whereas reduced glutathione (GSH) significantly increased (p< 0.01) compared to controls. Other enzymes viz., ceruloplasmin (CPL), gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT) and catalase (CT) were in normal range. RBC lipid peroxidation and percentage hemoly-sis remained unaltered. There was a strong negative correlation between blood lead level and SOD activity in the study group. Therefore, the changes in the levels of some antioxi-dants may play an important role in abating hazards of lead poisoning.
Author(s): Gayathri M Rao, Beena V Shetty, Sudha K