Just in case you were thinking about stuffing your mouth with anything Chinese that isn't General Tso's chicken -- Don't! Funtastic, a Texas-based novelty company, might have to re-brand itself under the name "Leadtastic," after it began to recall 26,000 fake hillbilly teeth that were manufactured in China.

I love how the packaging to the right works as both a sales pitch and a warning. Luckily these teeth are easily identifiable, just look for brown gums, yellow-colored teeth and a packaging number of 2657. Sorry, I don't think you can turn in Uncle Bubba's teeth as part of the recall effort.

I'm sure you have seen loads of darling children running around with a gob of misshapen plastic teeth in their mouths acting out scenes from Deliverance, but the fun has to end now. It seems lead in toys is an issue mainly because children might put them in their mouths and suffer from lead poisoning. You could argue that some items such as board games and piggy banks can contain as much lead as low-cost producers see fit since kids aren't likely to shove those items into their mouths. (Not that they won't try anyway). Somehow Funtastic missed this memo and for the last three years has been shipping lead-filled toys which are meant to be jammed into your kid's mouth.

You can get a refund on your lead dentures by contacting Leadtastic Funtastic.

I wrote recently about the booming industry in brain calisthenics, designed to keep our thought processes buffed. According to a recent AP article, many of we boomers might be well advised to adopt such a workout to offset the damages caused by our childhood lead exposure.

The article by AP's Malcolm Ritter cites research suggesting lead could cause our apparent brain age to exceed our actual age by as much as five years. Boomers could be especially prone to this effect due to the prevalence of lead-enhanced gasoline prior to its phasing out, which began in 1976.

One's lifetime lead load can be estimated by a scan of the shinbone. A 2004 study of 466 men showed a significant difference in brain function decline between those with high lead content in their shinbones and those without.

Of course, this is only one of many possible factors responsible for acuity decline, which also includes (for me) playing in the mist of DDT trucks as they sprayed our neighborhood, and chewing on balls of fresh tar.

The results are sobering in light of the lead-contaminated toys that have made recent news. Five extra years of mental alertness is a hell of a price to pay because we once decided to quell clattering valves by leading our gas.