Asked about the future of Parkinson\u2019s disease in the US, Dr Ray Dorsey says, \u201cWe\u2019re on the tip of a very, very large iceberg.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dorsey, a neurologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center and author of Ending Parkinson\u2019s Disease, believes a Parkinson\u2019s epidemic is on the horizon. Parkinson\u2019s is already the fastest-growing neurological disorder in the world; in the US, the number of people with Parkinson\u2019s has increased 35% the last 10 years, says Dorsey, and \u201cWe think over the next 25 years it will double again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most cases of Parkinson\u2019s disease are considered idiopathic \u2013 they lack a clear cause. Yet researchers increasingly believe that one factor is environmental exposure to trichloroethylene (TCE), a chemical compound used in industrial degreasing, dry-cleaning and household products such as some shoe polishes and carpet cleaners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To date, the clearest evidence around the risk of TCE to human health is derived from workers who are exposed to the chemical in the work-place. A 2008 peer-reviewed\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0in the Annals of Neurology, for example, found that TCE is \u201ca risk factor for parkinsonism.\u201d And a 2011 study echoed those results, finding \u201ca six-fold increase in the risk of developing Parkinson\u2019s in individuals exposed in the workplace to trichloroethylene (TCE).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr Samuel Goldman of The Parkinson\u2019s Institute in Sunnyvale, California, who co-led the study, which appeared in the Annals of Neurology journal, wrote: \u201cOur study confirms that common environmental contaminants may increase the risk of developing Parkinson\u2019s, which has considerable public health implications.\u201d It was off the back of studies like these that the US Department of Labor issued a guidance on TCE, saying<\/a>: \u201cThe Board recommends [\u2026] exposures to carbon disulfide (CS2) and trichloroethylene (TCE) be presumed to cause, contribute, or aggravate Parkinsonism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n TCE is a carcinogen linked to renal cell carcinoma, cancers of the cervix, liver, biliary passages, lymphatic system and male breast tissue, and fetal cardiac defects, among other effects. Its known relationship<\/a> to Parkinson\u2019s may often be overlooked due to the fact that exposure to TCE can predate the disease\u2019s onset by decades. While some people exposed may sicken quickly, others may unknowingly work or live on contaminated sites for most of their lives before developing symptoms of Parkinson\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those near National Priorities List Superfund sites<\/a> (sites known to be contaminated with hazardous substances such as TCE) are at especially high risk of exposure. Santa Clara county, California, for example, is home not only to Silicon Valley, but 23 superfund sites \u2013 the highest concentration in the country. Google Quad Campus sits atop one such site; for several months in 2012 and 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found<\/a> employees of the company were inhaling unsafe levels of TCE in the form of toxic vapor rising up from the ground beneath their offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While some countries heavily regulate TCE (its use is banned in the EU without special authorization) the EPA estimates that 250m lb of the chemical are still used annually in the US, and that in 2017, more than 2m lb of it was released into the environment from industrial sites, contaminating air, soil and water. TCE is currently estimated<\/a> to be present in about 30% of US groundwater (the non-profit Environmental Working Group created its own map<\/a> of TCE-contaminated water sites nationwide), though researcher Briana de Miranda, a toxicologist who studies TCE<\/a> at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, says: \u201cWe are under-sampling how many people are exposed to TCE. It\u2019s probably a lot more than we guess.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under EPA regulations, it\u2019s considered \u201csafe\u201d for TCE to be present in drinking water at a maximum concentration of five parts per billion. In severe cases of contamination, such as that which occurred at Camp Lejeune, a North Carolina marine corps, between the 1950s and late 1980s, people are believed to have been exposed to up to 3,400 times<\/a> the level of contaminants permitted by safety standards. A memorial site<\/a> known as \u201cBabyland\u201d honors the children of military personnel who died after they or their pregnant mothers were exposed to TCE-tainted water while living on the base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While De Miranda says researchers do not believe low concentrations of TCE in drinking water specifically are enough to cause illness, Dorsey doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s an overstatement to say US groundwater could be giving people Parkinson\u2019s disease. \u201cNumerous studies have linked well water to Parkinson\u2019s disease, and it\u2019s not just TCE in those cases, it can be pesticides like paraquat, too,\u201d he says, referencing a lethal weedkiller<\/a> the US still uses despite it being phased out in the EU, Brazil and China<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Asked about the future of Parkinson\u2019s disease in the US, Dr Ray Dorsey says, \u201cWe\u2019re on the tip of a very, very large iceberg.\u201d Dorsey, a neurologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center and author of Ending Parkinson\u2019s Disease, believes a Parkinson\u2019s epidemic is on the horizon. Parkinson\u2019s is already the fastest-growing neurological disorder in the world; in the US, the number of people with Parkinson\u2019s has increased 35% the last 10 years, says Dorsey, and \u201cWe think over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conditions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthnews.zone\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthnews.zone\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthnews.zone\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthnews.zone\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthnews.zone\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/healthnews.zone\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1018,"href":"https:\/\/healthnews.zone\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions\/1018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthnews.zone\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthnews.zone\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthnews.zone\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}