Subscribe
Previous Post
People who work professionally with pesticides know they’re working with a product that has a bad reputation for possibly causing cancer, birth defects, and other health problems.
Use of pesticides is still quite common as people are hired to protect crops. And, what the workers may not know, is if they have chronically stuffy, runny or itchy noses, this could be due to the pesticides.
Rhinitis, the medical term for a runny nose, is a common problem. Sometimes the cause can be traced to an allergy or a cold, but sometimes it appears to happen for no reason. Researchers from the National Institute of Environmental Health Science have been studying, since 1993, the health of people who apply pesticides. Before their study, the only one in the medical literature was of grape farmers in Crete. That study found that these farmers who used pesticides, had more allergic rhinitis symptoms compared with grape farmers who did not use the same pesticides.
The researchers found 2,245 commercial pesticide applicators and among the group, 74% had at least one episode of rhinitis in the past year. The rate of rhinitis seen in the general population is usually not more than 30%.
Of course, stuffy or runny noses aren’t severe problems, but discovering that the pesticides may cause this may lead to further research and further findings.
~~~
Image: PhotoXpress.com
