Brown et al. 2022 - household spice lead in Patna, Bihar

Brown and colleagues compared blood lead levels and household exposure sources for 135 children younger than six years in Patna, Bihar. The paper is direct occurrence evidence for lead in household spices, especially loose turmeric, and it also documents lead-chromate-compatible Pb:Cr patterns in a high-lead spice subset.

Key numbers

• The study enrolled 135 children: 67 in neighborhoods proximal to used lead-acid battery activities and 68 in distal neighborhoods.
• The overall child blood lead geometric mean was 12 micrograms/dL; 118 of 135 children (87%) had blood lead at or above 5 micrograms/dL.
• Table 3 reports household spice lead by pXRF in ppm. Proximal households had spice n=64, median 35.3 ppm, geometric mean 46.8 ppm; distal households had spice n=67, median 141 ppm, geometric mean 134.5 ppm.
• Turmeric lead was higher than the all-spice grouping: proximal households had turmeric n=63, median 44.0 ppm, geometric mean 59.4 ppm; distal households had turmeric n=65, median 363 ppm, geometric mean 216.9 ppm.
• Other spices were lower but still elevated: proximal households had other-spice n=51, median 9 ppm, geometric mean 11.4 ppm; distal households had other-spice n=64, median 32.5 ppm, geometric mean 29.4 ppm.
• Table 6 reports spice lead range 3.5-2574 ppm across 132 households; 106 of 132 households (80.3%) exceeded the cited Food Safety and Standards Authority of India 10 ppm lead threshold.
• A high-lead subset of 17 spice samples (10 turmeric, 4 chili, 3 coriander) underwent ICP-MS and XRD follow-up. All 17 contained lead and chromium; average molar Pb:Cr ratios were 1.1 for turmeric, 1.2 for chili, and 1.3 for coriander.
• For all children, each 10% increase in all-spice lead was associated with a 1.0% increase in blood lead (p<0.01); other-spice lead was associated with a 1.9% increase (p<0.01), and turmeric lead with a 0.8% increase (p<0.01).

Methods (brief)

The field team measured lead in household spices, paint, soil, dust, cosmetics, plastic items, cookware, and food storage containers using portable X-ray fluorescence. Spice samples with high pXRF lead readings were selected for laboratory confirmation at Stanford by ICP-MS after nitric-acid microwave digestion, with XRD used to identify dominant lead species. The paper reports lead in ppm for spices and does not provide sample-level values for every household spice.

Implications

Certification: This is high-severity occurrence evidence for the spices product row, but it is not a representative market benchmark because it comes from a household exposure investigation and includes targeted high-lead confirmatory testing.

Courses: The paper is useful for teaching why spice lead can dominate child exposure even when industrial sources are nearby, and why loose local turmeric requires different controls from nationally branded packaged spices.

App: Route as India-market spice and turmeric risk evidence. The household-use data support caution for loose turmeric and other bright-colored ground spices where lot-level lead screening is absent.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• spices
• spices
• turmeric
• lead
• chromium

Verification notes

• Table 3 and Table 6 are the numeric basis for this source page. The abstract rounds the geometric means to 46.8 vs. 134.5 ppm for all spices and 59.4 vs. 216.9 ppm for turmeric.
• The ICP-MS/XRD subset was selected from high-pXRF samples, not randomly from all household spices; it supports adulteration/speciation context but should not be treated as the distribution for all Patna spices.
• Chromium is present as Pb:Cr molar-ratio and XRD context for lead chromate. The paper does not report routine total chromium concentrations for every spice sample and does not provide Cr(VI) occurrence values.

Page history

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