Exposure to pesticides likely to trigger Parkinson’s
May 27th, 2011 - 4:52 pm ICT by IANSWashington, May 27 (IANS) Exposure to pesticides near farmland and homes is also likely to trigger Parkinson’s, a degenerative disease which brings on shakiness, slowness of movement, depression and sweating, among other conditions.
Researchers from the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), had stumbled on a link between Parkinson’s disease and two pesticides commonly sprayed on crops, which may have global implications.
That study did not examine farmers who constantly work with pesticides but people who simply lived near where farm fields were sprayed with the fungicide maneb and the herbicide paraquat.
It found that the risk for Parkinson’s disease for these people increased by 75 percent, the European Journal of Epidemiology reports.
Now a follow-up study adds two new twists. Once again UCLA researchers returned to California’s fertile Central Valley, and for the first time have implicated a third pesticide, ziram, in the pathology of Parkinson’s disease.
Second, instead of looking just at whether people lived near fields that were sprayed, they looked at where people worked, including teachers, firefighters and clerks who worked near, but not in, the fields, according to an UCLA statement.
They found that the combined exposure to ziram, maneb and paraquat near any workplace increased the risk of Parkinson’s disease (PD) threefold, while combined exposure to ziram and paraquat alone was associated with an 80 percent increase in risk.
“Our estimates of risk for ambient exposure in the workplaces were actually greater than for exposure at residences,” said Beate Ritz, senior author and a professor of epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health.
“This stuff drifts,” Ritz said. “It’s borne by the wind and can wind up on plants and animals, float into open doorways or kitchen windows - up to several hundred meters from the fields.”
“And, of course, people who both live and work near these fields experience the greatest PD risk. These workplace results give us independent confirmation of our earlier work that focused only on residences, and of the damage these chemicals are doing,” Ritz concluded.
Ritz also noted this is the first study that provides strong evidence that combination of the three chemicals confers a greater risk of Parkinson’s than exposure to the individual chemicals alone.
-Indo-Asian News Service
st/vt
- Pesticides near workplace raises Parkinson's risk: Study - May 28, 2011
- Research shows that Pesticides are a Huge risk for Parkinson's Disease - May 08, 2009
- Pesticide exposure raises Parkinson's risk - Apr 22, 2009
- Study finds two pesticides linked to Parkinson's disease - Feb 15, 2011
- French farmers exposed to pesticides more prone to Parkinson's disease - Jun 05, 2009
- Occupational pesticide exposure may up Parkinson's risk - Sep 15, 2009
- Severe flu doubles odds of developing Parkinson's - Jul 22, 2012
- Parkinson's disease linked to increased risk of prostate cancer, melanoma - Apr 07, 2011
- Genes, pesticide exposure interact to increase Parkinson's disease risk - Jun 15, 2010
- Common heart meds may protect against Parkinson's - Jan 23, 2010
- Sound from MP3 players eclipses environmental noise - Dec 22, 2011
- New model paves way for drugs to fight Parkinson's disease - Feb 02, 2011
- New faster technique to gauge health risk from chemicals - Dec 27, 2011
- Ozone-enriched environments reduce fungal spoilage of fruits, vegetables - Apr 11, 2011
- Two genes tell how Parkinson's progresses - Feb 13, 2012
Tags: beate, california los angeles, central valley, degenerative disease, drifts, fertile central valley, global implications, herbicide paraquat, kitchen windows, maneb, open doorways, pesticides, plants and animals, school of public health, slowness, ucla researchers, ucla school of public health, university of california los angeles, workplaces, ziram