Greenhouse workers subjected to insecticide overexposure bear the risk of suffering from degenerative disease in the future, according to a thesis developed by the professor of the UGR Olga López. In the study, she remembers that the interaction of these chemical products with different cellular and molecular goals “can produce cancer, neurotoxicity, reproduction and development alterations, immunological alterations or sensitivity syndrome to chemical substances, some of them as a consequence of an increase of free radicals (molecules produced as a consequence of the oxygen we breath and responsible for different degenerative pathologies)”.
To carry out this research work the professor of the University de Granada has had the collaboration of the doctors of the Primary Health Care of Carchuna and the sanitary staff of the Health Provincial Delegation of Almeria, who have explored 135 greenhouse workers from the coast of Granada and the West of Almeria. Sample taking was executed in two of the most important moments of the annual crop-dusting cycle: one of minimum exposure and another one of maximum exposure.
Increase of oxidative stress
Among the cellular areas interacting with insecticides, López Guarnido emphasizes cholinesterase and, among them, on the one hand, neuronal cholinesterase, responsible for the toxic mechanism and, on the other hand, erythrocyte and plasmatic cholinesterase, which act as a protection. According to the researcher from Granada, as a consequence of insecticide exposure there can be an increase of free radicals and, therefore, the increase of oxidative stress and the possibility of contracting degenerative diseases in future.
Although oxidative stress can be produced by many other causes, the researcher states that, in this case, “we can affirm that it has been produced by the chronic exposure to insecticides” as they have used an indirect exposure indicator, the reduction of erythrocyte cholinesterase, a classic exposure marker to such compounds, and he adds that “thanks to the decrease of such enzyme, we can confirm that in the group of greenhouse workers analysed, oxidative stress is exclusively due to the chronic exposure la to insecticides.
The most important result obtained in the study is, according to the author, that if they can detect these alterations in the first stages of the pathological process, they could apply preventive measures to avoid the apparition of irreversible clinical signs.
Education and treatments
The early detection of the damage is not the only solution to avoid the apparition of degenerative disease in greenhouse workers. Users´ education and training are determinant for them to adopt the appropriate safety and protection measures when working. The set in motion of effective treatments for the implications that the manipulation and exposure of such substances involve for health, are very important too.
As for the monitoring and analysis in health centres of the personas exposed to insecticides, the author of the thesis “Influence of chronic exposure to insecticides on different biochemical markers (esterase and antioxidant enzymes) on greenhouse workers of the Andalusian East Coast” considers that much more research works still have to be developed to make easier the analysis processes to implement this kind of tests in sanitary institutions.
Reference
Professor Olga López Guarnido
Dpt. Legal Medicine, Toxicology and Psychiatry
Tel. 958 243 546 / 958 243 491.
E-mail. olga@ugr.es
