NIH Study Links Pesticides to 80-90% Increase in Rates of Clinical Depression

This results of this study, released in September, haven't received the attention they should have. I became aware of it today in a post from iO9 and this led me to track down more information:

Vice - Pesticides Are Causing Farmers to Become Suicidally Depressed

To produce their report, released last month, a group of eight NIH epidemiologists surveyed 21,208 pesticide applicators in Iowa and North Carolina, asking them to report whether they had received a doctor’s diagnosis of depression between 1993 and 2010. In total, 1,701—eight percent—said they had. The researchers, who also examined the specific chemicals used by farmers to kill insects, weeds, and fungi, found that farmers who used one class of common insecticide were up to 90 percent more likely to have been diagnosed depression, and that farmers who used common fumigants were up to 80 percent more likely to be depressed.

There is also an interview with one of the researchers in Modern Farmer:

There’s a significant correlation between pesticide use and depression, that much is very clear, but not all pesticides. The two types that Kamel says reliably moved the needle on depression are organochlorine insecticides and fumigants, which increase the farmer’s risk of depression by a whopping 90% and 80%, respectively. The study lays out the seven specific pesticides, falling generally into one of those two categories, that demonstrated a categorically reliable correlation to increased risk of depression.

The precise mechanism by which these chemicals are causing depression hasn't been identified. In the past, I know studies had shown a correlation with at least one of the chemicals mentioned, Malathion, and ADHD. Malathion was reportedly used by a whopping 67% of respondents. While many of us aren't farmers and our exposure is generally going to be drastically lower than applicators, our exposure could still go far beyond residue on produce. Malathion is one of several pesticides dispersed through aerial spraying to control mosquitoes and was used as recently as 2000 in NYC. According to the Wikipedia page, there is an ongoing spraying program in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Finally, the NIH Research Report details the other chemicals found to be correlated with depression:

We found positive associations between use of some pesticides and depression among male private pesticide applicators in the AHS. Depression was positively associated in each case group with ever-use of two pesticide classes, fumigants and organochlorine insecticides, as well as with ever-use of seven individual pesticides: the fumigants aluminum phosphide and ethylene dibromide; the phenoxy herbicide 2,4,5-T; the organochlorine insecticide dieldrin; and the OPs diazinon, malathion, and parathion. Positive relationships between depression and cumulative days of use were evident, though nonmonotonic, in each case group for the fumigants ethylene dibromide and methyl bromide, the fungicide captan, and the organochlorine insecticide lindane.

As a side note, a company I worked for some years back dealt with produce fumigated with methyl bromide. Being in IT, I didn't have any exposure myself, but there were at least three warehouse workers that I knew of who experienced neurological symptoms that reminded me of those I've seen in stroke victims.

a reply to: theantediluvian

I know there are certain fruits and vegetables that are important to wash. The only one I know to wash for sure is strawberries. But saying that makes me wonder whether strawberries that are used as ingredients in drinks and other things are washed. Probably not!

Instead of counting on the government to keep our foods safe we should be banding together to form consumers unions!

a reply to: wayforward

I wash everything that isn't peeled, and some things that are, thoroughly.

I live on the coast. Planes come over spraying malathion over us regularly during mosquito season. Trucks, painted a sickly yellow green, drive up and down the roads spraying the stinky crap. Oh well, I'm feeling gloomy, but there are less mosquitoes.

I guess i would be in that 10% that isint depressed...i work for a pest control company it does affect nerves i can tell you that much..a reply to: theantediluvian

Very good thread. These chemical compounds work in many different ways.

Here is an article, It explains a little about restoring methylization, a consequent of some of the chemicals they use in food. ajcn.nutrition.org...

This article puts things together in a way that isn't hard to read. Much of this article I have researched and can say there is good evidence to sustantuate it.

It amazes me how much we are effected by decisions and or circumstance from the early 1900's.

The prohibition of pot opened the door to major chemical companies to market there products for growing cotton. If this prohibition wasn't used we would be wearing clothing and using a host of products made from hemp, that requires little or no chemicals to grow. Cotton grows by slave labor or the massive use of water and chemicals, hemp doesn't.

The electric car industry was destroyed in America in the early 1900's can you imagine how this technology would have changed all our lives with 100 years of practical application, research and development and infrastructure?

Its seems to me that a hundred years ago the worst dirty and polluting technologies were embraced or favored by both industry and government and we wonder why were at where we are today??

a reply to: theantediluvian

But Monsanto said in their commercial they're helping put more healthy nutritious food on our tables and we can trust them! Sarcasm ended. These ppl behind the scenes are attacking us through every possible means it seems. The foods poison, the poison makes you stupid and depressed, they destroy natural plants and poison organic gardens. I really think the devil or pure evil runs these companies.