The measurement of blood heavy metal and total anti-oxidant capacity due to being exposed to exhaust gas in people working in parking garage

Aim: The aim of this study is to evaluate the blood levels and serum TAC levels of lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium and nickel heavy metals, due to the the fact that the closed parking lot workers are exposed to the exhaust gas. Material and Method: This study is descriptive-cross-sectional and covers 76 volunteers working in closed parking lots in Diyarbakır. Results: Heavy metal results were evaluated according to the upper limits of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and TAK results were evaluated according to the reference limits of the Rel Assay Diagnostics Kit. A negative correlation was found between the TAC levels and lead, chromium and nickel levels to support our thesis in statistical analyzes. The relationship between smokers and cadmium levels was found to be significant. The relationship between the employees with low monthly income and lead, chromium, nickel levels and TAC levels was significant. The relationship between blood nickel, chromium and mercury levels and the working year of the emplotees was also found significant. In this study, we found that the employees of the indoor car park were disadvantaged in terms of socioeconomic, working environment and conditions, and the average values of the heavy metals measured were higher than the reference values and the serum TAC levels were lower than the reference values. We have not found any research that is consistent with our study in the literature search. Therefore, we compared our study with the two researches conducted in Turkey and partially overlapping with our study which consisted of the groups exposed to heavy metals occupationally and healthy populations. In this study, we found that the levels of blood heavy metal we measured were higher than most of the studies we encountered, and the serum TAC levels we measured were lower than most of the studies we compared. Conclusion: Heavy metal exposure is a major health problem in closed parking lots. We can say that there is a need for comprehensive, periodic biomonitoring studies, which are multicentre oriented towards closed parking lot workers, where their nutrition and habits are investigated in detail and other health indicators are investigated. Such studies will be useful in solving the health problems of people exposed to heavy metals.