blood lead levels in children with chronic non-organic abdominal pain, constipation, growth retardation, and healthy children

Background: lead poisoning is a preventable environmental disease, able to produce many problems, including gastrointestinal disorders. objectives: the aim of this study was to evaluate blood lead levels (blls) in children with chronic non-organic abdominal pain, constipation and growth retardation and whether there is a connection between blls and these functional disorders. methods: in this cross-sectional study, fifty-five children aged 2 - 14 years with non-organic chronic abdominal pain, constipation and growth retardation were selected as a case group. fifty-five healthy children of the same age acted as a control group. the blood lead level in all children was measured. lead poisoning was considered when the level was higher than 5µg/dl. results: the mean lead level in the case group (4.34 µg/dl) was higher than in the control group (1.19 µg/dl). there is a significant relationship between bll and gastrointestinal symptoms. (p=0.0001). constipation was the most common (38.2%) gastrointestinal disorder. anemia and living in old housing were most commonly found in the case group (73.9% vs. 12.5%), (43.5% vs. 16.1%), which was statistically significant as well. conclusions: in the study, bll in children with these disorders was significantly higher than healthy children. in this study, 23 patients had blls above 5 µg/dl, all of whom were in the case group. none of the children in the control group had bll higher than 5 µg/dl. there were significant differences between the groups with anemia and living in old housing. our patients presented symptoms at lower lead levels (less than 5 µg/dl) than estimated as toxic.