pesticides

Pesticide DDT linked to higher Alzheimer’s risk

A study comparing blood serum levels of the DDT metabolite, DDE, in 86 patients with Alzheimer's disease (average age 74) and 79 controls (average age 70), has found that levels of DDE were 3.8 times higher in 74 of the 86 Alzheimer’s patients (86%). Having the Alzheimer’s gene, APOe4, plus high levels of the pesticide, produced more severe cognitive impairment.

Brain cell studies found that DDE increased production of the amyloid precursor protein (APP).

Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website

Pre-term labor drug sensitizes brain to pesticide injury

A rat study has found that unborn rats exposed to terbutaline - a drug commonly prescribed to halt pre-term labor and stave off premature birth - suffered greater brain cell damage than those not given the drug upon secondary exposure to the common insecticide chlorpyrifos. This suggests that this drug might leave the brains of children susceptible to other chemicals ubiquitously present in the environment, and may help explain earlier suggestions that children whose mothers are administered terbutaline suffer cognitive deficits.

Rhodes, M. C., Seidler, F. J., Qiao, D., Tate, C. A., Cousins, M. M., & Slotkin, T. A. (2004). Does pharmacotherapy for preterm labor sensitize the developing brain to environmental neurotoxicants? Cellular and synaptic effects of sequential exposure to terbutaline and chlorpyrifos in neonatal rats. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, 195(2), 203-217. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0041008X03005404

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-03/dumc-pld033004.php

Cognition impaired by low-level exposure to organophosphate pesticides

Organophosphate pesticides are the most widely used insecticides in the world; they are also (according to WHO), one of the most hazardous pesticides to vertebrate animals. While the toxic effects of high levels of organophosphates are well established, the effects of long-term low-level exposure are still controversial.