Dados do Trabalho

Título

Parkinson's Disease is related to high exposure to household insecticides in Belém, Pará

Resumo

Introduction: Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease that does not have a known cause but is strongly affected by environmental factors for its evolution, such as the extended exposure to household insecticides (HI). The HI, such as the pyrethroids, are used in residences for insect control, especially mosquitos carrying arboviruses. Objective: To evaluate the association between exposure to HI and the development of PD in three Brazilian cities. Methods: This is a clinical, observational, and case-control study. Participants were enrolled from three cities: Belém/PA (BEL), Ribeirão Preto/SP (RP), and São Paulo/SP (SP), and were submitted to the survey "Latin American Research Consortium on the Genetics of Parkinson's Disease" (LARGE-PD). The statistical analysis was done with the Chi-square test and Mann-Whitney test. Results: 373 patients with PD (BEL: 134; RP: 150; SP: 89) and 215 controls (BEL: 94; RP: 97; SP: 24) were assessed. The median age of patients and controls was 59 and 53 years old, respectively. In BEL, the exposure to HI between patients (73,8%) and controls (70,2%) was more common than in RP and SP (p<0,01; RP - patients: 48%; controls: 51,5%; SP - patients: 35,9%; controls: 37,5%), but there were no differences in the exposure to HI between patients and controls in any of the cities. In BEL, the majority of individuals had high exposure to HI (exposure > 30 days/year) (patients: 69,6%; controls: 42,4%; p<0,0001) compared with the other cities (high exposure: RP - patients: 15,2%, controls: 10%, p=0,56; SP - patients: 31,2%, controls: 3,3%, p = 0,77), and patients with PD had greater proportion of high exposure to HI, compared with controls (p = 0,001). The overall median exposure time was 15 years, with no differences between patients and controls. Conclusion: In BEL, an Amazon Brazilian city with major exposure to HI, there was an association between high exposure to HI and the development of PD. High exposure to HI in BEL might be related to the Amazon environment, which promotes higher insect proliferation. Despite the weakness of the study (selection bias, memory bias, small sample, retrospective study), these results provide support to new studies that explore the association between PD and HI, mainly in less developed areas of the world.