Authored By:
Brouwer M, Koeman T, van den Brandt PA, Kromhout H, Schouten LJ, Peters S, Huss A, Vermeulen RThis case-cohort study investigated the association between occupational exposures and Parkinson’s disease (PD). Over 58,000 men and over 62,000 women were followed for over 17 years, resulting in 402 male and 207 female PD deaths. Exposures to pesticides, solvents, metals, diesel motor emissions, electric shocks and extremely low frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF) were included in the study. Elevated risk was reported for high exposure to ELF-MF (Hazard ratio = 1.54, 95% CI = 1.00-2.36) (the authors do not provide any information on what constitutes a high exposure). The authors conclude that the weight given to these findings is limited by the absence of a trend with either duration or cumulative exposure.
Published In:
Occup Environ Med 2015: in pressFew studies have reported on a positive association between occupational exposure to ELF-MF and PD, but it is possible that electric shock is responsible for the association, as has been suggested for other neurodegenerative diseases especially Alzheimer’s disease.
Due to the small number of PD cases studied in this paper, any correlation between ELF-MF exposure and PD cannot be confidently linked. This is because PD is a chronic, but not a fatal disease so there is a strong suggestion that substantial under-reporting of PD on death certificates has occurred. Since the study relies on the information on death certificates to find the cases, under-reporting could reduce the power to detect associations. Limited number of high-exposed cases especially among women is another limitation of this study.
A report by the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks in 2013 found that there are few new epidemiological studies on neurodegenerative diseases and they did not provide convincing evidence of an increased risk of these diseases related to ELF-MF exposure. Whether exposure to ELF-MF affects the development or progression of neurodegenerative diseases remains unclear and further epidemiological and experimental studies are required.
