EVALUATE THE EVIDENCE FOR LINKS BETWEEN EXPOSURE TO PESTICIDES IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND ADVERSE HEALTH EFFECTS IN HUMAN
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The present report is based upon the how pesticides are causing adverse effect on human health. Pesticide like organophosphate, organonitrogen, organochlorine is the major contaminants of environment which not only degrade the quality of life but also have degraded the quality of life too. Diseases like Parkinson, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, acute nephropathy, disturbance to CNS, diabetes, infertility are some of the major results of high or continuous exposure to pesticides. People while working with pesticides in developing countries are devoid of necessary requirement which make them easy target of pesticides.
Contents
Introduction……………………………………………………………………… 4
Review Literature…………………………………………………………………5
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………9
Reference…………………………………………………………………………10
INTRODUCTION
The development of industries lead us towards the environment which is toxic releasing many hazardous chemicals those are harmful for the survival of the human race. According to Santos, the waste generated by human through daily routine or by means of industries can be classified into two categories; the biodegradable waste which can be broken into smaller amount and degraded with time and non- biodegradable waste which will not degrade with time but will degrade the quality of human life and environment slowly. Due to advancement in technology new substances are been made daily which are up in the market and are easily available such as metals, plastics, insecticides, pesticides etc.
In the current report we will discuss what can be the adverse effect on human health upon exposure to pesticides. Pesticides are nothing but the chemicals those are used in farming to kill pests those harming the crop. The demand of pesticides has been increased in last couple of years due to increase in population and to meet the requirement. In the past history several incidences of pest attack has happened like the Black Plague caused by mouse which infected the whole Europe and several died. Another case happened at Ireland in 19th century when the whole potato yield was under the attack of pest late blight which not only destroyed the whole potato yield but caused serious famine known as Great Irish Famine between 1845-1847 that took 1 million lives due to starvation. Though having positive side of increasing yield it has a negative side too. The problem starts when the bioaccumulation of pesticides starts in food chain through foo, soil and water which leads to disastrous result causing several diseases fatal and non-fatal, somatic and inherited. Silent Spring, a book written by Rachel Carson in 1962, criticized the harmful effects of pesticides on environment and human health which enlightened public about the usage of pesticides. Right now almost 500 types of different pesticide are been used and mostly for agricultural purposes. Due to their increased usage in agriculture the concern about them entering into food chain and targeting the non-target organisms has increased. Though according to studies it has been reported that the amount of pesticides sprayed out of that only 0.1% of pesticides reaches to non-target organisms and rest enters into the environment. The serious issue that needs to emphasize here is that these pesticides on entering into the body accumulates in the tissue and cause serious diseases (Özkara, Akyil & Konuk, 2016).
REVIEW LITERATURE
The study was conducted in USA regarding the use of carbamate and organophosphate pesticides (acetylcholinesterase blocker) in agriculture and sleep apnea in farmers those who are exposed to it. For the study farmers were selected based upon the asthma case control and non-asthma. They were told to fill a questioner in which they have to mention the exposure to specific pesticide and the treatment they gone through. At the end of the study it was concluded that people with asthma case were more prone to sleep apnea than to non-one and people those who were exposed to cabofuran were found positive for sleep apnea and resulted into some serious health issues too (Baumert, Jackson & London, 2017). Another study conducted on the rice farmers of Zanzibar who reported self-symptom of pesticides in the study. The total farmers participated in the study out of which 61% reported using of WHO class II pesticides and complained about acute pesticide poisoning with symptoms like serious skin allergy, headaches with most common eyes irritation.Only 50% were well trained in handling pesticides (da Silva, Stadlinger, Mmochi, Stålsby Lundborg & Marrone, 2016). Central Ghana is malarial affected place where use of pesticide is high which resulted in exposure to pesticides is more and its related problems. A cross sectional study was been performed to see the use of pesticides and its prevalence among the people. Around 71% people admitted use of pesticide either in their house to control insects or in farms to control pests and weeds. Majorly 22.9 % people used DDT as the primary pesticide. Nearly 69.3% women participated in spraying the pesticides while 50.8% shockingly did it while carrying the baby a back. People showed symptoms like coughing (32%), skin irritation (39%) and difficulty in breathing (26.7%) (Kenneth et al., 2015). To study the possible effect of chlorpyrifos pesticides on pregnant women and offspring for that experiment was conducted on pregnant mice to check the state of anxiety and depression as this has direct effect on central nervous system. Various concentration of chlorpyrifos 0.01, 0.1,1 and 10 mg/kg/day was feed orally to Wistar mice on 14-20 days of their gestational period. The behaviour of the male offspring was then noted on post natal 21 and 70 day. Though they show no depressive symptom on 0.1, 1, 10 mg/day/kg but had shown anxiogenic like symptoms. The results were completely different on post natal 70 day (Silva et al., 2017). Several studies have shown the hazardous effect of perchlorates when mobilized to water and edible plant species to human. When human consumes plants having perchlorates they show a disturbance in thyroid hormone level and depressed neural development especially in foetus and infants. So deposition of perchlorates in fruits and vegetables should be closely monitored (Calderón, Godoy, Escudey & Palma, 2017)
. To monitor the level of pesticides in ground water in Akkar region of Lebanon a research was conducted. In total three major group of pesticides organonitrogen (ON), orgnochlorine (OC) and organophosphorus (OP) was selected and their level was checked in ground water of fifteen villages. Out of them most prevalence was shown by OC’s with 95-100% present in every pesticides at high quantity of 58.9 μg/L whereas OP’s were present in a quantity of 44.6 μg/L at high level in every sample and ON’s at a very low level of 5.6μg/L in each sample. Use of such ground water can lead to serious health issues (Chaza et al., 2017).
Another study that has detected the effects of pesticides on the length of telomere and occurrence of cancer has been done. Use of Omethoate a broad range pesticide belong to the group of organophosphorous is widely been used in house holed in China. Recent study has shown that long term exposure to low concentration to OP’s has chronic effects and has shown its possibility in genotoxicity causing damage to chromosomal DNA. Several tests were conducted to evaluate change in telomere caused due to the level of expression, effects of exposure and polymorphism. The results were shocking as the length of the telomere was unexpectedly longer in the exposed group in comparison to control group and the level of expression of mRNA of p53 and p21 was in much lower concentration. In overall study it was been found that the level of p53 and p21 mRNA adversely affects the length of telomere which leads to cancer (Duan et al., 2017). The study was conducted to determine the level of pesticides in personal air of the farmer working in paddy fields of Malaysia so that the health risks associated with exposure to pesticide can be determined. For this a sorbent tube was attached to nasal and held by clip and air pump was attached to their belt to collect personalized air sample. The sample were then analyzed and a high concentration of fipronil 462.5ngm (-3) which can put in a risk of life time cancer risk (Hamsan et al., 2017). Pesticide Thiram (tetramethylthiuram disulfide) belongs to group of dithiocarbamate (DTC) which has broad use in field as well as seed protectant. The pesticide has wide range effect on human and can cause cancer, disruption of endocrine and neuropathic exertion. This pesticide has wide range of affecting enzyme such as glycogen phosphorylase of brain, dopamine β-hydroxylase and 11β-hydroysteroid dehydrogenase. It has been proved that Thiram acts as the inhibitor of N-acetyltransferase 1 which is the key element in transferring the aromatic amine xenobiotics. It mainly modifies the NAT 1 catayltic cysteine residue (Xu et al., 2017).
Pesticides were also found to be interfering in sex hormones. According to a study conducted on rats that on exposure to chlorpyrifos it affected the reproductive system of rats. Different vital status of rats such as DNA integrity, sex hormone levels, epididymal sperm parameters etc, were taken into consideration which resulted in decrease weight of epididymis and testis. Increased liver weight resulted in low sperm motility, sperm count and increase sperm abnormalities. The higher dose of chlorpyrifos causes low level of testosterone hormone, luteinizing hormone and follicular stimulating hormone. In prolonged exposure to this pesticide results into the low fertility rate (Peiris & Dhanushka, 2017).
.
Pesticides have shown a large context of not only environmental but also human health hazards. The other methods to eliminate pests can be used out of which dependency on microbial means can be one option. In this way a plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) can be a good option. These microbes can be grown in-vitro and attaches with the roots of the plant where they help plant not only to absorb nutrients from the soil but also helps it develop a pest resistant system and will not have any adverse effect on human health (Gupta, Snehi & Singh, 2017). In previous time to analyze the level of pesticides the urine and blood sample were tested but a recent new approach of testing hairs has come into existence which has shown a potential result. As the old methods were short lived and can only be useful if resent in high amount the results based on hair analysis is based on the chronic exposure of hairs for several months (Appenzeller et al., 2016)
.
Several studies has shown that the organophosphorous causes intermediate syndrome which can be due to acute poisoning and be seen after 1-4 days and can last upto 18 days. It is due to the inhibition of ChE upto 80% after acute exposure. De Bleecker et. al in his study shown that out of 19 people involved in the study 8 of them suffered from intermediate syndrome whereas 6 reported cholinergic symptoms like increased salivary and bronchial secretion, sweating and diarrhoea. Whereas another study conducted in Thailand by Wananukul et.al, explained that in a case the symptoms of proximal limb, weak neck was reported 3rd day after the exposure whereas proximal muscle and respiratory weakness was reported in second case. Some of the other effects of acute poisoning from OP’s are Parkinson, Alzheimer’s disease, chronic nephropathies, diabetes, and chronic cardiovascular disease. Study conducted by Soetadji et. al, in children living at higher exposure areas of OP’s in Indonesia has resulted in aortic stiffness. Sohortono et.al, in his study demonstrated that childbearing women living at high OP’ exposure area were found to be suffering from hypothyroidism (Surtaman, Edwards & Babina, 2015).
CONCLUSION
The above report clearly states about the side effects and possible hazards of pesticides on human. Developing countries in absence proper farm techniques, education, necessary training and knowledge about the use and ill effects of pesticides has shown more cases of pesticides suffering. Government should take proper measures and launch such programs which can help in saving themselves or atleast take necessary measures while working with pesticides. It is seen that women has shown more prevalence in context to man. People suffering from pesticides harm effects needs to be properly medicated. Contrary methods like PGPR need to be developed which can give a second option to farmers instead of using pesticides.
REFERENCES
Özkara, A., Akyil, D., & Konuk, M. (2016). Pesticides, Environmental Pollution, and Health. Environmental Health Risk – Hazardous Factors To Living Species. http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/63094
Baumert, B., Jackson, C., & London, S. (2017). 0463 PESTICIDE EXPOSURE AND SLEEP APNEA IN THE AGRICULTURAL LUNG HEALTH STUDY. Sleep, 40(suppl_1), A173-A173. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sleepj/zsx050.462
da Silva, M., Stadlinger, N., Mmochi, A., Stålsby Lundborg, C., & Marrone, G. (2016). Pesticide Use and Self-Reported Health Symptoms Among Rice Farmers in Zanzibar. Journal Of Agromedicine, 21(4), 335-344. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1059924x.2016.1211572
Kenneth, A., Patrick, L., Kwaku, P., Darby, J., Ellen, A., & Robin, W. et al. (2015). Pesticide exposures in a malarious and predominantly farming area in Central Ghana. African Journal Of Environmental Science And Technology, 9(8), 655-661. http://dx.doi.org/10.5897/ajest2015.1912
Silva, J., Boareto, A., Schreiber, A., Redivo, D., Gambeta, E., & Vergara, F. et al. (2017). Chlorpyrifos induces anxiety-like behavior in offspring rats exposed during pregnancy. Neuroscience Letters, 641, 94-100. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2017.01.053
Calderón, R., Godoy, F., Escudey, M., & Palma, P. (2017). A review of perchlorate (ClO4 −) occurrence in fruits and vegetables. Environmental Monitoring And Assessment, 189(2). http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10661-017-5793-x
Chaza, C., Sopheak, N., Mariam, H., David, D., Baghdad, O., & Moomen, B. (2017). Assessment of pesticide contamination in Akkar groundwater, northern Lebanon. Environmental Science And Pollution Research. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-8568-6
Duan, X., Yang, Y., Wang, S., Feng, X., Wang, T., & Wang, P. et al. (2017). Changes in the expression of genes involved in cell cycle regulation and the relative telomere length in the process of canceration induced by omethoate. Tumor Biology, 39(7), 101042831771978. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1010428317719782
Hamsan, H., Ho, Y., Zaidon, S., Hashim, Z., Saari, N., & Karami, A. (2017). Occurrence of commonly used pesticides in personal air samples and their associated health risk among paddy farmers. Science Of The Total Environment, 603-604, 381-389. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.06.096
Xu, X., Mathieu, C., Berthelet, J., Duval, R., Bui, L., & Busi, F. et al. (2017). Human Arylamine N -Acetyltransferase 1 Is Inhibited by the Dithiocarbamate Pesticide Thiram. Molecular Pharmacology, 92(3), 358-365. http://dx.doi.org/10.1124/mol.117.108662
Peiris, D., & Dhanushka, T. (2017). Low doses of chlorpyrifos interfere with spermatogenesis of rats through reduction of sex hormones. Environmental Science And Pollution Research, 24(26), 20859-20867. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9617-x
Gupta, G., Snehi, S., & Singh, V. (2017). Role of PGPR in Biofilm Formations and Its Importance in Plant Health. Biofilms In Plant And Soil Health, 27-42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781119246329.ch2
Appenzeller, B., Hardy, E., Grova, N., Chata, C., Fa每s, F., & Briand, O. et al. (2016). Hair analysis for the biomonitoring of pesticide exposure: comparison with blood and urine in a rat model.聽Archives Of Toxicology,聽91(8), 2813-2825. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00204-016-1910-9
Surtaman, S., Edwards, J., & Babina, K. (2015). Organphosphate pesticides exposure among famworkers: pathways and risk of adverse heath effects. Rev Environ Health, 30 (1), 65-79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/reveh-2014