In a study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives has revealed that children are dangerously vulnerable to the effects of environmental pesticides, and for far longer than originally suspected.
Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have discovered that children lack sufficient levels of the enzyme most responsible for detoxifying pesticides up to the age of seven and possibly for longer. Known as paraxonase or PON1, the enzyme is the most important defense the body has against organophosphate chemicals, a major ingredient of the most commonly used agricultural pesticides.
458 children from rural communities were tested for levels of the enzyme, with results showing it to be consistently around a third lower than that of the mother of each child. To compound the concern, more than 40% of the children tested positive for a genetic type that made them particularly susceptible due to the inactivity of the enzyme, whilst nearly one in ten had a genetic profile that made them 'extremely vulnerable'.
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