Pregnant women and newborns in Beijing carry blood lithium levels up to 20 times higher than those in a comparable industrial city in central China, an alarming new study has revealed.
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The findings raise urgent questions about an unidentified source of lithium pollution in the Chinese capital.
According to research results published in the Journal of Ecotoxicology and Public Health on February 24, lithium concentrations in the blood of mothers-to-be in Beijing averaged 13.05 micrograms per litre (mcg/l) in 2019 and 11.23mcg/l in 2021 – far exceeding the typical safety threshold of 10mcg/l for unexposed populations.
By contrast, lithium levels among pregnant women in Changsha, capital of central Hunan province, averaged just 0.61mcg/l in 2023. In some cases, the levels in Beijing surpassed this by more than 40 times, at 27.31mcg/l.
The findings also pointed to a troubling mystery: while diet explained most lithium exposure in Changsha, 96 per cent of maternal lithium intake in Beijing could not be traced to known sources like food, water or air.
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This suggests the presence of a stable, unaccounted-for exposure source in Beijing, according to Hu Ligang, lead author of the study and an environmental chemist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
The continuous increase in environmental lithium levels warrants ongoing attention to its potential impact on normal fetal development