Lead is always toxic in the human body. There are no “safe” levels of lead. An atom of lead enters your body, usually though your lungs or skin, then quickly displaces another atom you really need, like zinc for your immune system, or iron to build blood, or calcium for bones, or dozens of metabolic reactions needed for brain development. The brain issue is an especially dangerous one.

Children with high lead levels do poorly in school, may have ADD, and be prone to lives of crime. Adults over 44 with high lead levels have 37% greater risk of death from any cause and 70% greater risk of death from heart disease than those without lead in their bodies.

I know many of you must be thoroughly tired about me writing about telomeres and aging. For the uninitiated, telomeres are the ends of chromosomes, similar to the plastic tips on shoelaces. Researchers into aging discovered that rapid telomere shortening was a sign of accelerated aging and, yes, another trigger for telomere damage is the presence of lead in the human body. (And again, if you want to check the status of your telomere length, call, scheduling “lab only” for a quick blood draw. Pay the lab directly $195.).

You may have read in last week’s Chicago newspapers how Illinois, especially around Chicago, has one of the worst situations when it comes to lead pipes needing replacement (“well over 1 million water lines”). Although the money is coming in from the Federal government, the process is moving slowly. So slowly, that one alderman remarked, “at the rate we’re going, we’ll finish up in the year 2553”.

Actually, issues with lead go back to ancient times. The Romans loved the stuff: pipes, aqueducts, bathtubs, and cooking vessels were all lead lined. One theory for the decline of the Roman Empire was massive lead poisoning throughout the population. They even sweetened their wine with it. By the way, the Latin word for lead is Plumbum, the basis for the word plumber.

With the start of the Industrial Revolution, lead entered our lives in a variety of serious ways. Despite all sorts of warning signs of illness among workers (especially mental illness), lead industry moguls would join the lying ranks of those from the tobacco industry and the radium watch-dial industry, almost always in cahoots with bribed medical professionals to swear on Bibles their products were safe.

Here are some old Dutch Boy paint ads, touting the “flavors” of lead-based paints.