Pesticides will raise risk of Parkinson’s disease
The BMC (Biomed Central) Neurology journal has recently published a study that links pesticides to Parkinson’s disease, a debilitating neurological disease affecting millions of people worldwide. Parkinson’s disease affects the sufferer’s central nervous system and impairs his or her motor skills and speech functions.
The study’s lead author Dana Hancock stated that while previous studies have already shown that individuals with Parkinson’s disease have double the chance of reporting a previous exposure to pesticides, few studies have bothered to look at the association in people with exposure to specific classes of pesticides and Parkinson’s disease.
A team from Duke University and the University of Miami have assembled and surveyed 319 patients and over 200 relatives for the specific study, using phone interviews to gather data concerning people’s histories of exposure to pesticide, whether living or working on a farm, and well water drinking if applicable.
The authors of the study were able to detect conclusive and telling evidence that pesticide use and Parkinson’s disease are associated, with the strongest cases pertaining to the illness and use of herbicides and insecticides such as organ chloride and organophosphate. Associations with between well water drinking or living on farm and Parkinson’s disease however, were not found despite farm life and well waters being the most common avenues for pesticide exposure. It’s been said that future studies may try to find out if the disconnect is due to the sturdier health of people who have lived on a farm for a definite amount of time.
