Objective To investigate the current levels of exposure of the Japanese population to cadmium and lead, in comparison with the levels in 1980 s β’ Design A nation wide survey was conducted in 1991-1994 (the 1990 study) in 19 study sites in Japan as a follow-up to a study conducted in 1979-1983 (the 1980 study) Blood samples and 24-h total food duplicates were collected from women who did not smoke or drink habitually. Methods Blood and food duplicates (after homogenization) were analysed for cadmium (Cd-B and Cd-F, respectively) and lead (Pb-B and Pb-F) by graphite furnace atomic absorption after wet-ashing β’ Results Altogether, 467 women volunteered for blood sampling Of these women, 375 also gave food duplicates. Geometric mean (GM) Cd-B levels in the 1990 study were lower than the corresponding 1980 values in most study sites so that the 1990 grand GM ( 1 98 ng/ml) for Cd-B was significantly lower than the 1980 GM ( 3.58 ng/ml) This reduction in Cd-B was related to the reduction in Cd-F (GM for Cd-F was 38 0 ig/day in the 1980 study and 30 0 ftg/day in the 1990 study). Dietary intake was almost exclusively the route of Cd burden among the populations studied Both Pb-B and Pb-F also showed a remarkable reduction, i e from 33.9 ng/ml ( 1980 GM) to 23 2 ng/ml ( 1990 GM) in the case of Pb-B, and from 32 2 Gig/day ( 1980 GM) to