Researchers in the US have suggested a link to Alzheimer’s and the once widely used pesticide, DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane). A study published by JAMA Neurology found that people suffering with the debilitating brain disease had up to four times the levels of DDT than non-suffers.
The BBC reports that a team at Emory University Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School’s Alzheimer’s Disease Center tested 86 people with Alzheimer’s disease comparing the results with 79 healthy people of a similar age and background. The results showed those suffering with Alzheimer’s had 3.8 times the level of DDE (dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene).
DDT eventually is broken down into DDE.
Dementia facts for the UK:
- There are currently 800,000 people with dementia.
- There are over 17,000 younger people with dementia.
- There are over 25,000 people with dementia from ethnic groups.
- There will be over a million people with dementia by 2021.
- Two thirds of people with dementia are women.
- One third of people over 95 have dementia.
After starting my garden maintenance and landscaping business in 1984 and running it for 21 years I decided I needed a change of direction (probably a mid life crisis, no seriously! :-0) Together with my family, wife Donna, Son Henry and Daughter Fleur (not forgetting Hector the Black Labrador) I moved to France in search of an old farmhouse to renovate. In the interim period whilst waiting for the contract to go through I started writing a blog. Initially just to keep a diary for family and friends to keep up with our progress if they wished but then it occurred to me that there isn’t a real time watcher of the landscape industry in the UK. I didn’t want to waste my experience and experiences so I decided I could put all of this Juice to good use so I started Landscape Juice.
Source: Landscape Juice – Alzheimer’s Linked to the Pesticide DDT – Philip Voice
