Environmental #pesticide exposure and the risk of irritable bowel syndrome: A case-control study

Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology
Volume 98, March 2023, 104076
Lola Rueda-Ruzafa, Pablo Roman, Diana Cardona, Mar Requena, Carmen Ropero-Padilla, Raquel Alarcón

Highlights

• The risk of irritable bowel syndrome is higher in areas of high pesticide exposure.
• Agronomic criteria were used to categorize pesticide exposure in the study population.
• A total of 18,807 cases of irritable bowel syndrome were studied.
• Environmental pesticide exposure is linked to irritable bowel syndrome.

Abstract
The agricultural model in southern #Spain is highly productive, mainly due to the intensive cultivation under plastic. Despite strict pesticide regulation, human exposure to pesticides in the environment has been connected to an increase in diseases such as #CeliacDisease. Certain pesticides have also been associated to the disruption of the intestinal #microbiota, which has been xtied to the development of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). A case-control study was conducted in Andalusia, south #Spain, to assess the prevalence and risk of IBS related to pesticide exposure. This research found a high prevalence of IBS in #Andalusia between 2000 and 2021 in areas with high pesticide exposure using agronomic criteria. Furthermore, the odds ratio for IBS was significantly higher in the population with high pesticide exposure. This study suggests that pesticides may be involved in IBS, whereas more research is needed to determine the role of pesticides in IBS symptomatology.

Excerpts: "[In the locations of the study], the most commonly used insecticides are #organophosphates (primarily chlorpyrifos), N-methylcarbamates, macrocyclic lactones, #neonicotinoids, and pyrethroids. #Fungicides frequently used in plastic greenhouses include (di) thiocarbamates, conazoles, dicarboximide), anilino-pyrimidines, and copper salts. Bipyridyl (paraquat, diquat), organophosphonates (#glyphosate), chlorotriazine, and phenylurea are the herbicides most popularly used in the study areas (García-García et al., 2016)."

[...]

Studies on Rats

"A wide range of environmental pollutants, including heavy metals, insecticides, herbicides, and pesticides, can cause gut dysbiosis (Jin et al., 2015, Lin et al., 2020, Reygner et al., 2016). As suggested in our findings, there is also an increased risk of IBS precisely in pesticide-heavy areas and particularly in women. Previous research have found sexually dimorphic metabolic effect after pesticides exposures (Lukowicz et al., 2018). In this regard, #Roundup®, a glyphosate-based herbicide (#GBH) widely used in Andalusian crops, can increase the #Bacteroidetes group while decreasing the #Lactobacillaceae family in fecal samples of female rats (Lozano et al., 2018). Similarly, chronic glyphosate exposure reduces Corynebacterium, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Lactobacillus in mice following GBH administration (Aitbali et al., 2018). Exposure to fungicides such as imazalil can also alter the composition of the GM after acute and chronic administration. Specifically, in mice, imazalil increases the relative abundance of Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria while decreasing the abundance of Bacteroidetes (Jin et al., 2016). Insecticides such as chlorpyrifos, diazinon and aldicarb also disrupt the GM of rats and mice (Aitbali et al., 2018, Gao et al., 2019, Gao et al., 2017, Joly et al., 2013). This modification has been associated with increased intestinal permeability and bacterial translocation in the case of chlorpyrifos (Condette et al., 2014). Diazinon inhibits several SCFA-producing genera in the Lachnospiraceae family, which operate as an energy substrate for colonic epithelial cells, altering energy harvesting in the intestinal epithelium (Gao et al., 2017)."

Read more:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1382668923000170

#IBS #Bayer #ToxicPesticides
#Monocrops #Monocrap #BigAg
#BigChem #Poison #RoundUpKills #USPol #WorldPol #Roundup #Glyphosate #Herbicides

#organophosphates #Nazis #CaseyMeans

There are many common arguments against the use of pesticides. Surgeon general nominee Casey Means has an additional one — a connection between pesticides and Nazi Germany.

'Where did all these pesticides that have destroyed our life-giving soil and are creating a fragile food system, which is going to create a food crisis at some point, where did they all come from? Nazi Germany, right?' Means said on Tucker Carlson’s podcast in August 2024.

(. . .)

Thompson described Means’ argument as a 'bait and switch.'

'The suggestion that because this came from Nazi Germany, that therefore it is evil and poisonous, while in some sense, I have sympathy for that argument, in another sense, it’s kind of sloppy,' he said. 'To simply say that they’re bad because at one point, a Nazi chemist was involved in their development, it would discount so many things we have in our contemporary world.'"

https://forward.com/fast-forward/718882/casey-means-surgeon-general-tucker-carlson/

https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2008-0915-0058

#EPA’s proposed #acephate ban comes on the heels of an 8th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that overturned the EPA’s 2021 ban on food uses of #chlorpyrifos, the most studied #organophosphate. This was an unexpected setback, but the EPA has the ability and the legal authority to reinstate the ban…

Tell the EPA to protect our health by following through on the #acephateban, reinstating the chlorpyrifos ban, and put bans in place on all #organophosphates #pesticides.

Global decline in male fertility linked to common pesticides

Researchers compiled, rated and reviewed the results of 25 studies of certain pesticides and male fertility and found that men who had been exposed to certain classes of #pesticides had significantly lower sperm concentrations. The study included data from more than 1,700 men and spanned several decades.

“No matter how we looked at the analysis and results, we saw a persistent association between increasing levels of insecticide and decreases in sperm concentration,” said study author Melissa Perry, who is an environmental epidemiologist and the dean of the College of Public Health at George Mason University.

The new analysis focuses on two groups of chemicals — #organophosphates and some #carbamates — that are commonly used in #insecticides.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/global-decline-sperm-concentrations-linked-common-pesticides-rcna125164 #pollution