Pesticides on your fruit linked to Parkinson’s disease

A new study suggests that exposure to some pesticides can increase the risk of Parkinson's disease by up to six times in certain people.

While past research has shown a clear link between pesticide exposure -- particularly the chemicals paraquat, maneb, ziram and benomyl -- and the disease, this study identifies 11 more types of pesticides that could also have the effect.

It also confirms previous research that people with the gene variant ALDH2 are more susceptible to Parkinson's when exposed to pesticides.

“These pesticides are pretty ubiquitous, and can be found on our food supply and are used in parks and golf courses and in pest control inside our buildings and homes,” study author Dr. Jeff Bronstein, a neurology professor at UCLA, says in a statement.

The study, published in the journal Neurology, compared 360 people with Parkinson's with 816 people without it. All the participants were from three California farming communities that used pesticides.

The researchers found that even low-levels of exposure to 11 different pesticides made people with the gene variant ALDH2 were up to six times more likely to develop the disease -- suggesting that the variant made them particularly susceptible to the illness.

Time explains how the process works: The pesticides block an enzyme in your body called aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH), which raises a naturally occurring brain toxin called DOPAL. When DOPAL builds up in the brain, it can cause Parkinson’s disease.

“We were very surprised that so many pesticides inhibited ALDH and at quite low concentrations, concentrations that were way below what was needed for the pesticides to do their job,” says Bronstein.

He is careful to note that having the gene variant alone is not enough to significantly increase the risk of the disease. It needs to be combined with exposure to pesticides.

"Parkinson's is a disease that in many cases may require both genetics and environmental factors to arise," Bronstein tells Medical Daily.

Nearly 100,000 Canadians have Parkinson's disease, according to the Parkinson Society Southwestern Ontario. By 2016, this figure is expected to double.