Common Household Solvent Linked to Parkinson’s Disease

Copied from Northwest Parkinson’s Foundation Weekly News Update

 

STUART SILVERSTEIN

FairWarning - A chemical often found in groundwater and widely used in household products, including spot removers and carpet cleaning fluids, has been linked in a new study to Parkinson’s disease.

The study, which appeared in the Annals of Neurology medical journal, focused on 99 sets of twins. In each case one of the twins suffered from Parkinson’s and the other did not.

Researchers, led by scientists from The Parkinson’s Institute and Clinical Center in Sunnyvale, Calif., asked the twins about their job histories and hobbies, and determined what the twins’ exposure in those settings would have been to six common solvents.

Based on those evaluations, the researchers found a strong link between Parkinson’s and exposure to  or TCE. They concluded that people who worked with TCE had more than a six times greater risk of developing Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative disease estimated to afflict as many as 500,000 Americans. Symptoms of Parkinson’s include limb tremors, slowed movement and speech impairment.

As a news release from the Annals of Neurology noted, researchers also found that people exposed to two other solvents — perchloroethylene, or PERC, and carbon tetrachloride, or CCI4 — “tended toward significant risk of developing the disease.”

“Our study confirms that:

 

common environmental contaminants may increase the risk of developing PD, which has considerable public health implications,”

 

said one of the leaders of the study, Dr. Samuel M. Goldman of The Parkinson’s Institute.

Goldman said his research team’s findings and previous reports “suggest a lag time of up to 40 years” between TCE exposure and the onset of Parkinson’s,

 

“providing a critical window of opportunity to potentially slow the disease process before clinical symptoms appear.”

Still, he warned that exposure to TCE is pervasive, and doesn’t just occur in the kinds of settings he and his colleagues examined.

According to the journal news release and a fact sheet from The Parkinson’s Institute, TCE still is commonly found in such substances as

 

dry-cleaning solutions, carpet cleaners, adhesives and paints, and as a grease-removing material in industry.

 

That wide use comes even though the Environmental Protection Agency declared it a human carcinogen in September, and despite the 1977 decision by the Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of TCE as a

 

general anaesthetic, skin disinfectant and coffee decaffeinating agent.



The researchers called TCE the most common organic contaminant found in groundwater, and said

 

it is detected in up to 30 percent of drinking water supplies in the country. It also is found in soil and in the air.”