Researchers Find the Effect of Pesticides on Increased Cancer Risk Is Comparable to Smoking for Some Cancers
In a recent study published in Frontiers in Cancer Control and Society, researchers comprehensively evaluated the impact of pesticide use on cancer development in the United States (US).
Background
Pesticides are necessary for animal and plant control but can adversely impact agricultural and domestic life. Studies link pesticide exposure to various health problems, including neurological diseases, an elevated risk of cancer, and impaired immunological function. Pesticides such as glyphosate, malathion, parathion, tetrachlorvinphos, and diazinon are carcinogenic, particularly in animal models.
The Agricultural Health Study (AHS), which included 89,000 farmers, showed associations between pesticides and prostate, lung, pancreatic, colon, multiple myeloma, and leukemia. Thus, it warrants a thorough evaluation of cancer risk from a population health standpoint in the US.
About the study
In the present population-level study, researchers determined pesticide use-related cancer risk.
The researchers linked datasets based on county-level Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) codes. They used an eight-class latent-class analysis (LCA) to determine pesticide usage patterns, modeled against research factors such as county-level smoking rates, agricultural land use, and socioeconomic vulnerability. They translated individual pesticide consumption statistics into national-scale quartiles.