Department of Foods and Nutrition, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana - 141 004, India.
Sixty school children in the age group of 7–9 years were selected each from industrial and countryside of Ludhiana city to find out the effect of heavy metal toxicity on the intellectual development. Seventeen and fifty per cen of the children from industrial and countryside were to found above the “intellectually average” category; whereas 83% and 50% of the children of both the areas respectively were found “definitely below the average in intellectual capacity”. This may be due to the higher blood lead level in the children of industrial group (283±28.4 mg/dl) as compared to the children belonging to control group.
