Biomonitoring of lead and cadmium Preliminary study on the added value for human exposure and effect assessment RIVM Letter report 2016-0215 B. Tiesjema │ M. Mengelers Biomonitoring of lead and cadmium Preliminary study on the added value for human exposure and effect assessment RIVM Letter report 2016-0215 B. Tiesjema│M. Mengelers RIVM Letter report 2016-0215 Colophon © RIVM 2017 Parts of this publication may be reproduced, provided acknowledgement is given to: National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, along with the title and year of publication. B. Tiesjema (author), RIVM M. Mengelers (author), RIVM Contact:
[email protected] This investigation has been performed by order and for the account of the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), Office for Risk Assessment and Research, within the framework of the project ‘Indicators for human body burden’, research question 9.1.62. This is a publication of: National Institute for Public Health and the Environment P.O. Box 1 | 3720 BA Bilthoven The Netherlands www.rivm.nl/en Page 2 of 49 RIVM Letter report 2016-0215 Synopsis Biomonitoring of lead and cadmium Preliminary study on the added value for human exposure and effect assessment People are exposed to all kinds of substances (for example via food) , which can be harmful to their health. To accurately estimate the health effects, it is important to determine to what extent these substances actually harm the body. In order to do so it may be helpful to measure concentrations of these substances in body fluids and/or tissues (biomonitoring). RIVM chose the substances lead and cadmium to investigate to what extent such measurements show a relationship with the exposure as well as the health effects of these substances.