Lucia Palmas

Blood and hair lead levels in boys and girls living in two Sardinian towns at different risks of lead pollution.

This study reports blood and hair lead levels measured in 1998 in 222 children from two Sardinian towns: Portoscuso and Sestu. Portoscuso is in a polluted area of Sardinia due to its vicinity to the industrial zone of Portovesme. As a consequence of its economy and location, Sestu is not exposed to lead pollution. Blood lead (PbB) concentration was determined in heparinized venous blood samples by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS). Hair lead (PbH) concentration was determined by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). With respect to blood lead levels, the boys of Portoscuso have the highest arithmetic mean value (11.30 microg/dL), followed by the Portoscuso girls (7.39 microg/dL); they are followed, but with much lower values, by the boys (4.09 microg/dL) and girls (3.34 microg/dL) of Setsu. For hair lead levels, the Portoscuso boys have the highest arithmetic mean value (15.51 microg/g), followed by the Portoscuso girls (8.82 microg/g) and the Sestu boys (4.03 microg/g) and girls (2.83 microg/g). Therefore the mean values of PbB and PbH follow similar patterns in the boys and girls of the two Sardinian towns. Two-way ANOVA reveals a significant effect of sex and town on log PbB and log PbH. Moreover, values of the Bravais-Pearson coefficients of correlation between log PbB and log PbH are statistically significant for the total sample (r=0.5086; P<0.001), for males (r=0.4275; P<0.01), and for females (r=0.4859, P<0.001). The sensitivity of the hair lead analysis in identifying lead concentrations above 10 microg/g is 49%. The results support the hypothesis that hair lead levels can be considered an indicator of different relative exposure of populations to lead pollution.

Growth charts of head length and breadth for regional areas? A study in Sardinia (Italy)

There exist few standards of head length and breadth from childhood to adulthood in Europoid populations. Moreover, such standards are based on samples that cannot be used as references for all populations since they were taken from different ethnic groups and from different periods. The aims of this study were: (1) to test whether standards derived from North Americans of European extraction can be used to assess the Sardinian population; and (2) to produce growth charts for head length and breadth for Sardinian males and females from 3 to 22 years of age. The cross sectional sample consisted of 9,721 subjects of Sardinian origin (4,884 males and 4,837 females), aged 3-22 years, measured from 1998 to 2008. Growth percentiles were produced with the LMS method. The mean values for each sex in each age class (3-18 years) are almost always significantly lower for both head length and breadth than the corresponding North American values. The exceptions are the head length of boys of 14 years and girls of 16-18 years where values for Sardinians are lower, but not significantly so. The results show that the North American standards are not appropriate for the assessment of Sardinian children. For the Sardinian population, specific regional growth charts should be used to correctly evaluate the normal range and the cut-off points of the extreme percentiles.

Offspring from endogamic vs. exogamic matings: Absence of anthropometric differences among Sardinian children (Italy)

This study evaluates possible differences in body dimensions among children from matings of different exogamy levels. The cross‐sectional sample consisted of 867 children, 435 males, and 432 females, 6–10 years old, attending elementary schools in the metropolitan area of Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia (Italy). The children were divided into two groups according to the level of exogamy. The first group consisted of children of parents born in the same Sardinian municipality and was considered endogamous sensu stricto. The second group included children of parents born in municipalities from different Sardinian linguistic domains and was considered exogamous. The Mann–Whitney test did not reveal significant differences between the two groups of children in the mean rank values of the 36 anthropometric variables considered, with the exception of cephalic circumference in males and chest depth in females. In particular, there were no significant differences for anthropometric variables considered to be indirect indicators of nutritional status: sum of skinfolds, waist/hip ratio, body mass index, total upper arm area, upper arm muscle area, and upper arm fat area. The results indicate that Sardinian children from marriages of different exogamy levels do not differ in body dimensions if they grow up with similar nutritional and socioeconomic conditions. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2010.