RESEARCH - Exposure to pesticides can cause Parkinson's

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Exposure to pesticides can cause Parkinson's

SUSPICIONS that pesticides could cause Parkinson's disease have been

strengthened. The more pesticide you are exposed to, the higher your risk of

developing the disease, say investigators who have studied almost 3000

people in five European countries. The results reinforce the need for

amateur gardeners and farmers alike to wear protective equipment when

spraying pesticides, the team concludes.

" It considerably strengthens the case for pesticides being relevant to

occupational risk of Parkinson's disease, " says Seaton of the

University of Aberdeen, UK, principal investigator of the Geoparkinson

study, which was funded by the European Commission and followed volunteers

in Scotland, Italy, Sweden, Romania and Malta. Researchers questioned 767

people with Parkinson's disease and 1989 healthy controls with similar

backgrounds about several risk factors associated with the disease,

including exposure to pesticides.

People with Parkinson's were more likely to have used pesticides regularly.

Users with low exposure such as amateur gardeners were 9 per cent more

likely than non-users to develop the disease, and high-exposure users such

as farmers were 43 per cent more likely.

Coggon of the University of Southampton, UK, and chairman of the

British government's Advisory Committee on Pesticides, said the study's

weakness, acknowledged by the authors, is that it could not identify which

pesticides were responsible. " It's possible that just one or two are causing

it, but slipped through the regulatory net, " says Coggon. It would be more

helpful, he adds, for studies to monitor exposure to individual pesticides

as and when they are used, rather than relying on people's memories of their

usage.

" The more pesticide you are exposed to, the higher your risk of developing

Parkinson's "

To put the pesticide risks into perspective, Seaton says that the study

identified other, much stronger risk factors. Having a family history of the

disease increases your risk by 350 per cent, although they found no link

between risk of Parkinson's and 18 gene mutations suspected of causing the

disease. Being knocked unconscious once raises the risk by 32 per cent,

rising to 174 per cent for those who have been knocked out several times.

From issue 2501 of New Scientist magazine, 26 May 2005, page 14

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg18625014.900

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