Leading to impairment. It’s common knowledge that children with high levels of lead in their systems can face serious impairment in brain development and cognitive skills. A recent study by BU researchers at the School of Public Health, the School of Medicine, and the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System and researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School suggests that environmental lead, accumulated in the body over time, may produce cognitive impairment in the elderly as well.

The researchers studied a cohort of 466 men between the ages of 60 and 74 enrolled in the Department of Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study, a multidisciplinary study of aging men that has collected extensive health and lifestyle data since 1963. The researchers measured the accumulation of lead in two bones of the leg, the tibia (the larger bone of the lower leg) and the patella (kneecap). The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), which is used to screen for dementia and assesses such abilities as memory, attention, language, orientation to place and time, and ability to copy a design, was administered to each participant twice, about three and a half years apart.

The researchers found that men with accumulated lead in their patella, even relatively modest levels, showed a significant drop in MMSE scores from the first test to the second. Men with more lead (20 micrograms per gram of bone) had scores similar to men 5.3 years older, even adjusting for differences in age, education, smoking, alcohol intake, and time between tests. There was also an association between tibia lead levels and lower test scores, although it was less marked.

Avron Spiro III, an SPH associate professor of epidemiology, one of the authors of the study, points out that mild cognitive impairment, such as was found in this study, is increasingly being recognized as a transitional state between normal aging and dementia. He and his colleagues hope that by better understanding the factors that contribute to subclinical cognitive deficits, preventive and treatment interventions can be developed to help maintain the quality of life of elderly people.

This research appeared in the December 2004 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Reading matters. Children today seem to be busier than ever. But according to a new study by COM students, children with full schedules still manage to find time to go to the library and to read, despite their busy calendar of activities.

Students in Assistant Professor James McQuivey’s course Mass Communication Research last fall analyzed the reading habits of more than 500 children by surveying their parents for a study commissioned by the Children’s Book Council. The participants were chosen randomly from an online research panel and responded to an online questionnaire about their children’s reading habits and other activities.

Although the study confirmed several commonly accepted views — for example, parents who read have children who read and children who are read to are more likely to read by themselves — the surprising result was that those who read the most were also more likely to be involved in numerous activities. In fact, 57 percent of children who scored as active readers also participate in five or more extracurricular activities a week, including sports, Scouts, and classes in art, music, and dance. Similarly, parents who read are more likely to be involved in several extracurricular and community-based activities such as volunteer work, parent-teacher organizations, outdoor physical activities, and the arts.

The study also showed that television has not replaced reading for active readers — they are likely to both read and watch television after school — and they spend about the same number of hours in front of the small screen as other children. Active readers also tend to be more media-oriented than their counterparts: 68 percent of them play video or computer games and use the Internet, compared to 57 percent of children who are not active readers.

“Children who read do more of everything else,” says McQuivey. “We’re raising a generation of highly involved children.” But, he cautions, “Our results suggest that homes where reading is not a priority may be lacking in other important social opportunities.” Also, it is significant to note that because the study population was drawn from an online panel and respondents were predominantly college-educated, middle- to upper-class, and white, the findings cannot necessarily be generalized to the general population.