Pesticide Exposure May Increase Risks of IBD, Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis: Study

There is no cure for ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease, which can cause lifetime digestive difficulties.

Exposure to pesticides like Dowicide, Fungal, Preventol and other popular products that are widely sprayed throughout the United States may increase the risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) years later, according to the findings of a new study.

The research was published last month in the journal Gastroenterology, indicating that military personnel exposed to high concentrations of o-Hydroxybiphenyl and pyrene, which are both used in numerous pesticide products, had a larger number of incidents of IBD over the course of a decade, including cases of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

Ulcerative colitis is an inflammatory bowel disease that affects nearly 700,000 Americans, impacting the lining of the intestines and colon. The chronic condition produces painful and debilitating symptoms, including severe abdominal pain, blood in the stool, diarrhea, fever, fatigue and weight loss.

Crohn’s disease is another chronic inflammatory bowel disease that causes irritation and swelling in the digestive tract. Symptoms can include abdominal pain, diarrhea, weight loss, anemia and fatigue. It can also cause life-threatening complications.

There is no cure for either condition, and they typically require a lifetime of treatment with corticosteroids, immunomodulators or other medications. While the exact causes of the IBD conditions are often unknown, they are usually attributed to a combination of genetics and environmental factors.

Since rates of inflammatory bowel disease have increased with the rise in use of chemical pollutants and environmental shifts toward modernization, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York set out in this new study to examine what role pesticides may have on the risk of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

The team of researchers, led by Dr. Manasi Agrawal, looked at data and blood samples from 75 military recruits over the course of 10 years, taking blood samples over time and looking at rates of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. They examined the chemical compounds in the recruits’ blood, as well as any correlation between the levels of exposure and IBD diagnosis.

According to the findings, some chemical compounds, primarily associated with pesticides, increased the risk of Crohn’s disease by 41%. The risks of ulcerative colitis increased by nearly 70%.

The researchers determined that the main chemicals found in relation to the higher risks of IBD were o-Hydroxybiphenyl, a key ingredient in the pesticides Dowicide, Fungal, Preventol, Torsite and Nipacide, as well as pyrene, which is used in a number of pesticide products as well.

“In this analysis of 300 serum samples from 75 active-component service members at four time points at and prior to IBD diagnosis, we observed that the odds of CD and UC were increased with higher serum levels of a chemical mixture at least 6 years prior to diagnosis. The pesticide with the highest contribution to the mixture association was o-Hydroxybiphenyl, an agrochemical pesticide used in apple, banana, and corn farming,” the researchers concluded. “To our knowledge, this is the first study to measure serum levels of chemicals’ mixture at multiple time points prior to IBD diagnosis. These data are consistent with other indirect reports on pesticides and IBD.”