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D W Yeager

Publications and source records attributed to D W Yeager.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

Total body burdens and tissue concentrations of lead, cadmium, copper, zinc, and ash in 55 human cadavers.

Trace metal contents of human tissues and total body burdens are useful for studies of nutrition and certain diseases. Data are summarized and analyzed for individuals exposed to the normal Cincinnati environment, for 29 tissues from 55 cadavers for lead and ash concentrations, and from 26 cadavers for cadmium, copper, and zinc concentrations. Total body burdens also were calculated and correlated against each other and age. The distributions for ash, copper, and zinc were close to normal, but those for lead and cadmium were closer to lognormal. Bone lead increased with age, whereas soft tissue lead did not. The calculated mean percentage of total body lead in the bones ranged from 78% at age 20 to 96% at age 80. Correlations of blood concentrations with total body burdens were negligible for cadmium and zinc. For copper the correlation coefficient was a poor 0.54. For lead in blood vs soft tissue burden it was a very poor 0.37, and vs total body lead it was negligible. Thus the use of blood samples as a convenient clinical measure of body burdens for these metals may be of limited value. These and other findings provide a useful bank of information for health studies.

Adult

Cadmium in liver, kidney, and hair of humans, fetal through old age.

Cadmium concentrations were measured in the liver, kidney, and hair of 107 individuals from the Cincinnati area. The tissue samples were obtained from hospital and coroner autopsy cases and represent a cross-section of individuals from fetal to old age. The sections used were standardized and analyzed for cadmium by atomic absorption. Information obtained at the time of autopsy included the cause of death, the conditions of the tissues, the body height and weight, the amount of anthracosis in the lungs, as well as age, sex, and race. The liver concentrations increased steadily until the late decades. The kidney concentrations increased to the fourth decade, peaked, and decreased steadily from the sixth decade thereafter. The leveling effect in the liver may have been due to the increased presence of fatty livers, and the kidney decreases to nephrosclerosis. The kidney and liver were statistically well correlated. Hair, which achieved a surprisingly high Cd concentration in early infancy, tended to decrease throughout the rest of the age span and correlated poorly with the liver and kidney. There seemed to be no relationship between the amount of pulmonary anthracosis and the cadmium found in any of the tissues. The results obtained here for liver and kidney were in line with other reports in the literature; however, the hair results were somewhat different.

Adolescent