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The decline and fall of the Roman Empire was very likely caused by a combination of factors. The article makes a reasonable case that lead poisoning could be one of them.

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Yep. Another plausible cause that doesn't get as much traction is climate change - particularly, the cooling period during the second and third centuries that may have contributed to the fall of the Han dynasty and the Roman crisis of the third century.

Although Rome, China, and (not mentioned earlier) Perisa managed to reconstitute themselves, the subsequent decline in trade both within and across empires had to have had an effect (although to what extent, I'm sure others on here know more about it tham I do).

This sounds super interesting. Could you share some resources to read up on this?

I think you can certainly google most of it. But certainly the combination of climatic change and the bubonic plague certainly helped bring down the plans of the Emperor Justinian to reunite the Empire. An excellent resource is the Fall of Rome Podcast. Most historians will agree that no one reason alone caused the Empire to fall, rather it's a combination of factors that together brought it down.

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