A study published in the journal, PLoS Medicine has linked lead exposure to criminal behavior. The more your child gets exposed to lead in their early ages the higher the chances of them becoming a criminal later in life.

Criminal behaviors are associated with elevated blood lead levels that are found both in the child and the pregnant mother. Several pregnant women were recruited from areas that had higher rate of lead poisoning in children’s. 250 new born out of the 376 were selected for the study. Children’s, lead exposure level were noted down and when they reached the age 19 to 24 about 157 were asked to undergo MRI brain scan.

It was found with higher lead exposure certain part of the human brain reduced in size, that particular part of the brain is responsible for attention, complex control, decision making, solving problems, controlling emotions, social & personal behavior regulations. The effects of lead exposure were stronger in male.

It should be noted that previous studies have related atmospheric lead levels and leaded gasoline with criminal behavior.

Kim Dietrich, a professor of environmental health at the University of Cincinnati and co-author of this study said

I never would have thought that we would be seeing these effects into the later 20s, I’m actually quite astounded and quite worried about this. Although lead levels have been going down in this country, a large proportion of the population now in their 20s and 30s had blood levels in this neurotoxin range.

He also added that

In essence, we stripped away the variants that could be accounted for by early home environment — their health at birth, mother’s ingestion of drug and alcohol during pregnancy, their own ingestion of drugs postnatal and as adolescents and as young adults. Lower income, inner-city children remain particularly vulnerable to lead exposure. Although we’ve made great strides in reducing lead exposure, our findings send a clear message that further reduction of childhood lead exposure may be an important and achievable way to reduce violent crime.