Hypertension (high blood pressure) is a new concern that’s linked to organophosphate pesticides, which also seem to cause ADHD (attention deficit, hyperactive disorder) symptoms in children.
Children exposed to the pesticides are three times more likely to have hypertension, say researchers from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine.
The researchers assessed the health of 313 children aged from four to nine years living in Ecuador, which is one of the world’s largest commercial flower suppliers, shipping flowers to North America, Europe and Asia.
Each year, growers intensively spray the flowers ahead of Mothers’ Day celebrations, and the researchers monitor the health of the children for up to 100 days after exposure to the spray.
The children had hypertension for the first 80 days after exposure, and blood pressure levels started to normalize only in the last 20 days of the study.
In an earlier study, the researchers found the pesticides caused ADHD-like symptoms in the children, such as an inability to focus and concentrate, and the children also suffered visual and motor problems.
(Source: Environmental Research, 2019; doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2019.05.030)
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