Back

Exposure to Lead and Incidence of Alzheimer Disease and All-Cause Dementia in the United States

Wang, X.; Bakulski, K. M.; Walker, E.; Mukherjee, B.; Dodge, H.; Albin, R. L.; Paulson, H. L.; Park, S. K.

2025-08-19 epidemiology
10.1101/2025.08.15.25333790 medRxiv
Show abstract

INTRODUCTIONGrowing evidence suggests lead exposure may increase dementia risk, but evidence from human studies is limited. We investigated associations between lead exposure and incident Alzheimer disease (AD) and all-cause dementia in a nationally-representative, prospective cohort. METHODSWe examined over 14,000 individuals with baseline measured blood lead and estimated patella and tibia lead from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)-III (1988-1994) and continuous NHANES (1999-2016), linked to Medicare and the National Death Index for incident AD and all-cause dementia, with up to 30 years of follow-up. Survey-weighted Cox regressions estimated hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTSIn continuous NHANES, estimated patella lead was positively associated with AD (HR=2.96, 95% CI: 1.37-6.39) and all-cause dementia (HR=2.15, 95% CI: 1.33-3.46), comparing quartile-4 vs. quartile-1. We observed weaker associations in NHANES-III. Blood lead showed no association. DISCUSSIONThese findings suggest cumulative lead as a potential dementia risk factor.

Matching journals

The top 7 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above