Parkinson’s disease linked to common pesticides

A new research has found that farm workers and people living in rural or agricultural communities tend to suffer from higher rates of Parkinson’s.

Health experts have long suspected a link between common pesticides and Parkinson’s disease.

The new research reveals how crop chemicals and your genes may come together to increase your Parkinson’s risk – and how you might one day be able to safeguard yourself.

The research, appearing in the journal Cell, outlines first-of-its-kind lab work involving stem cells. After creating the type of mutated brain cell that past studies have linked with greater Parkinson’s risk, the research team exposed that mutation to the common farm pesticides paraquat and maneb.

“Even at very low concentrations, the pesticides killed these nerve cells, which shows how they would cause Parkinson’s,” explains study coauthor Stuart A. Lipton, MD, PhD, of Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute.