Revised and new reference values for some trace elements in blood and urine for human biomonitoring in environmental medicine

Reference values for environmental pollutants related to the German population are established continuously by the Human Biomonitoring Commission of the German Federal Environmental Agency. The reference values for arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury and platinum in blood or urine were derived from the German Environmental Survey 1998 (adults aged 18 - 69 years). The reference value for lead in blood was lowered for females from 90 to 70 mug/l and for males from 120 to 90 mug/l, while the values for cadmium of 1.0 and for mercury of 2.0 mug/l in blood remained unchanged. For cadmium in urine the reference value was lowered from 1.5 to 0.8 mug/l and for mercury in urine from 1.4 to 1.0 mug/l. New reference values were derived for arsenic (15 mug/l) and platinum in urine (0.01 mug/l). Additionally, for nickel in urine a new reference value of 3.0 mug/l based on data from the literature was established. Reference values for estimation of the selenium status were summarized from the literature. For aluminium in blood or urine no reference values were derived and the use of human biomonitoring to estimate aluminium exposure in environmental medicine is not recommended.