For farmers, gardeners and agricultural enterprises, pesticides present a solution to the problem of a centuries-old conflict between insects and crops. World populations continue to grow, and the climate in which we produce food is becoming increasingly tricky to navigate.
Now, new research from scientists in France and Peru suggests living in environments with a heavy use of pesticides might quietly wreak havoc on cells years before any signs of cancer appear.
Scientists chose to study populations in Peru due to the country’s heavy emphasis on agriculture across its different climates and ecosystems. Pesticide concentrations in certain rural communities run high, and cancer is a public health concern. They tracked 31 common pesticides, none of which are classified as known carcinogens by the World Health Organization.
After comparing distribution patterns to data from more than 150,000 cancer patients, scientists noticed a pattern: Areas with higher environmental pesticides use showed elevated rates of certain cancers, increasing an individual’s likelihood of developing the disease by 150%.
Historically, understanding how people are impacted by pesticides in everyday situations has been difficult due to a couple factors: the way these chemicals are “layered,” and the way in which we encounter them.
Although previous research has tested the individual safety of certain chemicals on people, the reality of how you might encounter them in the world is more difficult to approximate — challenging the established ways in which we evaluate what we consider to be chemically safe.