The Red, White, and Green

The pesticide/Parkinson’s link has long been a leading theory among scientists researching the disease, but now researchers at UCLA have uncovered substantial evidence that two specific pesticides — maneb and parquat — trigger the neurodegenerative process that leads to Parkinson’s disease. The epidemiological study, which followed residents of California’s Central Valley — one of the most vital crop-growing regions in the US — found that years of exposure to these two combined pesticides increased the risk of developing the disease by a startling 75 percent. Age of exposure was also found to be an important risk factor in the study: For those diagnosed with Parkinson’s at age 60 or younger, prolonged pesticide exposure in childhood or adolescence increased their risk even more significantly.

“The results confirmed two previous observations from animal studies,” says Beate Ritz, professor of epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health and the study’s senior author. “One, that exposure to multiple chemicals may increase the effect of each chemical. That’s important, since humans are often exposed to more than one pesticide in the environment. And second, that the timing of exposure is also important.”

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–Jennifer Grayson

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