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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDDT: Pesticide linked to Alzheimer's
A study, published in JAMA Neurology, showed patients with Alzheimer's had four times the levels of DDT lingering in the body than healthy people. DDT also lingers in the human body where it is broken down into DDE.
The team at Rutgers University and Emory University tested levels of DDE in the blood of 86 people with Alzheimer's disease and compared the results with 79 healthy people of a similar age and background. The researchers believe the chemical is increasing the chance of Alzheimer's and may be involved in the development of amyloid plaques in the brain, a hallmark of the disease, which contribute to the death of brain cells.
DDT was a massively successful pesticide, initially used to control malaria at the end of World War Two and then to protect crops in commercial agriculture. Dr Simon Ridley, the head of research at the charity Alzheimer's Research UK, said: "It's important to note that this research relates to DDT, a pesticide that has not been used in the UK since the 1980s.
Fellow researcher Dr Jason Richardson added: "We are still being exposed to these chemicals in the United States, both because we get food products from other countries and because DDE persists in the environment for a long time,"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25913568
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)/image_large
Mz Pip
(27,454 posts)Last edited Tue Jan 28, 2014, 04:20 PM - Edit history (1)
They would slowly move through the neighborhood fogging mosquitos. All the kids in the neighborhood would walk behind the truck pretending to be zombies.
Good times. Good times. Forgot to add
progressoid
(50,000 posts)arikara
(5,562 posts)Grampa lingered with dementia for years and years before he died, and Dad has been in care for 10 years now too... he's only 77. The effects are devastating.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)I stay organic, but god know what was already there, and what nurseries use....