Healthbuzz

Study: Pesticides increase Parkinson’s risk

by LaVonne on 30/05/07 at 5:15 pm

Pesticides increase Parkinson’s risk – Health-TimesOnline

The risk of developing Parkinson’s disease is increased by exposure to pesticides, a study has found.

People exposed to low levels of pesticides had a 13 per cent higher risk of developing the disease, and those exposed to high levels a 41 per cent greater risk, researchers from Aberdeen University found.

The researchers compared the lifetime experiences of almost 1,000 Parkinson’s sufferers with almost 2,000 unaffected people in Scotland, Italy, Sweden, Romania and Malta. The method did not establish which pesticides the sufferers had been exposed to, as most of them could not provide such information…

Georgina Downs, of the UK Pesticides Campaign, said that it was not surprising that study after study linked pesticides to chronic neurological and neurodegenerative diseases. “This study has found that the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease increases according to the level of exposure to pesticides,” she said. “This is highly significant in relation to the long-term exposure of rural residents living near sprayed fields.”