[HN Gopher] Rates of Parkinson's disease are exploding. A common...
___________________________________________________________________
Rates of Parkinson's disease are exploding. A common chemical may
be to blame
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 212 points
Date : 2021-04-08 15:56 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| sbradford26 wrote:
| So IBM had/has a serious issue with TCE in Endicott, NY. IBM has
| mostly left Endicott but they are still paying to clean up the
| area.
|
| News article about it: https://wbng.com/2019/11/21/40-years-
| after-spill-former-ibm-...
|
| EPA Website with status on the cleanup:
| https://www.epa.gov/hwcorrectiveactionsites/hazardous-waste-...
| lucb1e wrote:
| For those wondering if the "exploding" from the headline is
| clickbait or a misread statistic: not exactly, it sounds true
| (enough) based on what Wikipedia says:
|
| > In 2016 PD resulted in about 211,000 deaths globally, an
| increase of 161% since 1990. The death rate increased by 19% to
| 1.81 per 100,000 people during that time.
| throwaway78124 wrote:
| I live ~1000ft from a super fund site that is cleaning up
| TCE/DCE, and there are a few more within 5-10 miles of here.
|
| I smell weird things in the mornings sometimes, and also after
| rainstorms. We lived pretty close to another super fund site when
| I was growing up, and my father has Parkinson's. So I assume that
| I get to die early.
| adammunich wrote:
| You should move
| dcolkitt wrote:
| Just speculating here. Could be due to declining smoking rates.
| Especially among the cohort that's aging into age into prime
| diagnosis years. Nicotine is highly effective at preventing
| Parkinson's.
|
| https://actaneurocomms.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s4...
| fab1an wrote:
| This is a very plausible explanation.
| tubularhells wrote:
| How would you know?
| nabla9 wrote:
| What does plausible mean?
|
| My understanding:
|
| plausible: it is possible to make reasonable case for that
| argument.
|
| possible: is capable of becoming true, though it's not
| always reasonable.
|
| The logic of possible nicotine link seems completely clear
| on the basis of current nt knowledge. That does not mean it
| exists or is important. Somebody has to look into it.
| mrow84 wrote:
| "Very plausible" carries different connotations to
| "plausible". The former suggests (to me) that it _really
| might be the right explanation_ , whereas the latter just
| sounds like it is an explanation that fits currently
| known facts.
| samatman wrote:
| Nicotine is in fact _highly protective against
| Parkinsons_. The effect is not small!
|
| Smoking has declined by at least half in the last fifty
| years in the United States. Also not a small effect!
|
| "Very plausible" here means "someone should really do a
| study where they correlate for lower levels of nicotine
| use and see if there's anything left to explain".
|
| I can't imagine anyone would see "very plausible" and
| think the explanation should be accepted without
| investigation. That's just not what that phrase means.
| mrow84 wrote:
| > Nicotine is ...
|
| > Smoking has ...
|
| Neither I, nor anyone in this thread, has contested the
| existence of evidence to support this claim.
|
| > "Very plausible" here means ...
|
| Why does "plausible" not suffice?
|
| > I can't imagine anyone would see "very plausible" and
| think the explanation should be accepted without
| investigation. That's just not what that phrase means.
|
| I didn't suggest otherwise.
| athoun wrote:
| To add a data point, I recently had a grandparent who died with
| Parkinson's disease.
|
| After doing research, it turns out their home was located very
| close to a Superfund cleanup site from a dry cleaner that
| operated in the 60's and contaminated the groundwater with TCE
| and PCE. The chemicals leach into the groundwater and can spread
| hundreds of feet per year. Buildings located over these plumes
| are exposed to vapors which accumulate indoors over time and
| expose the occupants.
|
| According to Wikipedia, the PCE solvent which is used at nearly
| every dry cleaner across the country has been known as a x10 risk
| factor for Parkinson's [1].
|
| For California residents, you can find out about these
| groundwater plumes on the waterboards website. They are located
| all over Silicon Valley and former dry-cleaners around the
| country [2].
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachloroethylene
|
| [2]: https://geotracker.waterboards.ca.gov/
| Wohlf wrote:
| Similarly, my uncle has rapidly progressing Parkinson's caused
| by exposure to Agent Orange as a Seabee in Vietnam, his VA
| doctors have confirmed this as the cause.
| franklyt wrote:
| There are measurable links between use of ADD/ADHD medication and
| Parkinson's, which makes sense given that the former modulates
| dopamine and the latter has to do with dopamine modulation.
|
| I view this direct connection as more compelling an explanation.
| dsego wrote:
| Wait till you see what anti-psychotics can do.
| franklyt wrote:
| Errr... I was more implying that ADD/ADHD medications are in
| very common usage, making it a notable data point. Perhaps I
| should have make that explicit.
| challengly wrote:
| And medicating kids for acting like kids is already dubious,
| even if a Parkinson's link proves to not hold.
| Wohlf wrote:
| This may be true in the future but seems unlikely today,
| Parkinson's rarely occurs before 60 and the rise in ADHD
| diagnoses started in the 90s.
| franklyt wrote:
| Yeah, we'd need more data. Because PD is such a low-incidence
| disease generally, any kind of uptick, even in the pre-60
| cohort, would push the dial substantially. Are pre-60 cases,
| which I just found out trivially are at 4%, increasing
| substantially? Is 4% inclusive of a much older dataset? I'd
| venture that the answer is yes, but I have no idea.
| xxpor wrote:
| Looking at the wiki entry for trichloroethylene:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichloroethylene
|
| I guess I'm a little skeptical of the explaination that it could
| be the source of the explosion of Parkinson's over the past
| decade. Trichloroethylene has known to be a problem since at
| least the 50s. For example, its use in bulk in dry cleaning was
| replaced in the 50s with tetrachloroethylene, and it was used for
| spot cleaning only up until 2000.
|
| The only seemingly recent increase in uses are:
|
| "The demand for TCE as a degreaser began to decline in the 1950s
| in favor of the less toxic 1,1,1-trichloroethane. However,
| 1,1,1-trichloroethane production has been phased out in most of
| the world under the terms of the Montreal Protocol, and as a
| result trichloroethylene has experienced some resurgence in use
| as a degreaser."
|
| I don't think most people are exposed to industrial degreaser in
| their line of work, let alone in domestic settings.
|
| "TCE is also used in the manufacture of a range of fluorocarbon
| refrigerants[13] such as 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane more commonly
| known as HFC 134a"
|
| Now this seems somewhat plausible. R134a started to be used in
| the early to mid 90s, so the timeline would make sense. However,
| it says it's only used in the manufacture of it. Perhaps there's
| some residual left in the final R134a product, and that's how
| people would be exposed to it? Plenty of ACs and fridges in
| people's lives.
| nitrogen wrote:
| There are groundwater plumes of TCE around air force bases
| because they used to just dump extra TCE into open pits
| thinking it would evaporate. Maybe those plumes reached enough
| city wells to cause problems over the last few decades.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Example:
| https://www.library.pima.gov/blogs/post/trichlorethylene-
| tce... Hughes is now Raytheon Trichlorethylene (TCE), an
| industrial solvent, was routinely dumped in areas of South
| Tucson during the 1950s. The Tucsonans who lived in these
| areas have had various cancers as a result of this pollution.
|
| The boundary of the area contaminated by TCE is roughly south
| of 22nd street, north of Los Reales Road, east of Interstate
| 19 and west of Del Moral Boulevard.
|
| Hughes Aircraft and the city of Tucson were accused of
| dumping TCE in the water table for 29 years, beginning in
| 1952. A lawsuit against the city was settled in 1981 for $31
| million, and in 1991 a suit against Hughes Aircraft was
| settled for $84.5 million. In 1981 the Environmental
| Protection Agency (EPA) tested water wells on the south side
| of Tucson and found TCE levels were beyond the EPA limits.
|
| In 1983, the EPA set a large southside area of Tucson on its
| Superfund cleanup list. In March 2000, a $35 million plan was
| secured for cleanup of the contaminated areas. Other
| government supervised cleanups started about 20 years ago.
| The last settlements involving TCE lawsuits occurred in June
| 2006.
| chriselles wrote:
| I recall this making headlines in the 90's in proximity to
| airbases in Pennsylvania.
|
| Specifically issues around drinking water for residential
| housing with wells in proximity to the airbases.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| If your fridge or AC is exposing you to trace amounts of TCE
| left over from the process of making the R134a it's primarily
| charged with, it also isn't keeping your food cold.
|
| A common AC charge for a car is around 500g +/- 25g It doesn't
| take much of that leaking out before it doesn't blow cold air.
| Even if there was a bunch of residual TCE, you're unlikely to
| be subject to a long term exposure because you'd notice your AC
| or fridge not working long before the full charge leaked out to
| expose you.
|
| In spite of the efforts of the world's accountants, fridges and
| air conditioners still routinely last a decade or more. That's
| because the charge of R134a is largely staying put.
| pomian wrote:
| There is also the interesting process of chemical Oxidation,
| which occurs naturally, and with environmental clean up. (
| Various treatment processes: ozonation, peroxide injection,
| etc.) The break down by products of complex chemicals, are
| often more toxic (long term hazard to organisms, including
| humans.) For example, Tetra fluoroethylene, may easily
| breakdown down to Tri fluoroethylene. There are even more toxic
| by products, further down the break down chain. Soil chemistry
| is very complicated, and interesting. EPA has very good
| articles following these processes across hundreds of superfund
| sites, across the USA.
| criddell wrote:
| My dad is suffering from Lewy Body Dementia which is related to
| Parkinson's. He was an auto mechanic his entire adult life
| (from around 1960 - 2010). I wonder if he was exposed to TCE?
|
| I did a 23 and Me test and never unlocked the health results.
| I'm a little terrified of finding out that dementia is in my
| future as well.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| If he used a lot of brake cleaner or carburator cleaner then
| likely yes. Either TCE or a similar chlorinated solvents.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Degreaser is a common part of a car mechanics life.
| Especially so 30+ years ago where it was more common to clean
| and replace parts than now when it's more usual to just
| replace any removed part.
| athenot wrote:
| This is counter-intuitive but I guess there are cases where
| throwing away the part and replacing with a new one is
| _MORE_ environmentally friendly that reusing the part--when
| it involves not-so-nice solvents. I hadn 't considered this
| before.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Both Parkinson's and Dementia with Lewy Bodies mostly occur
| without family history, so the test may not say much anyway.
|
| In my mom's case I wonder about a viral infection she had in
| her eye. It was quite severe.
| criddell wrote:
| > mostly occur without family history
|
| Does that suggest it's environmental rather than genetic?
| maxerickson wrote:
| I don't know really.
|
| I think the cutting edge opinion is that it isn't known
| why they occur.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Even genetic diseases sometimes need environmental
| influences to develop.
|
| For example, some people are prone to alcoholism in a
| hereditary way. But if they live in a society that has
| zero alcohol, they won't ever become alcoholic. Upon
| moving to a society where alcohol is sold freely and
| frequently, they may sink into alcoholism without having
| any obviously alcoholic ancestor.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Not necessarily. A homozygous recessive disorder often
| occurs without prior family history.
|
| Two carriers have a child together, the child has the
| disorder, this is how they learn they are carriers.
| okprod wrote:
| _I did a 23 and Me test and never unlocked the health
| results. I 'm a little terrified of finding out that dementia
| is in my future as well._
|
| I was in almost the identical boat but I pulled the trigger
| on looking at the test results, ended up fine. Better to know
| and try to manage it I think.
| criddell wrote:
| Intellectually, I know you're right.
|
| There's also the angle that if I want to buy life insurance
| I may be better off not knowing.
|
| After seeing how it's affecting my dad, I know how I'd
| "manage" it. It really is awful and decades of mental
| decline coupled with terrifying hallucinations is not
| something I'm willing to endure.
| evanmoran wrote:
| The life insurance angle is real, but the solution isn't
| to wait, it's to get into the plan before you find out.
| You can always stop the plan if you think your risks
| aren't as high later when you know more!
| prepend wrote:
| > buy life insurance I may be better off not knowing.
|
| I think it's moot because life insurance will check your
| genes as part of underwriting.
|
| In the US genes can't be used to discriminate for
| employment or healthcare [0], but can for everything
| else.
|
| I got a quote for term insurance in 2008 and they tested
| for lots of genetic conditions.
|
| You can probably get by if you have unique, rare
| mutations that aren't commonly studied. But anything
| basic enough to be found in a 23andme profile is likely
| to be checked by your insurance.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_discrimination
| jxramos wrote:
| I bought some brake cleaner not too long ago and saw all the
| labeling about the new formulation. I just looked up what the
| old formulations used to look like, check it out.
|
| > Chlorinated brake cleaners (often sold as non-flammable)
| use organochlorides like tetrachloroethylene and
| Dichloromethane.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake_cleaner#Composition
|
| Compared to the new formulation
|
| https://www.crcindustries.com/products/brakleen-174-pro-
| seri...
|
| so called 50 state compliant.
| https://www.crcindustries.com/products/brakleen-174-pro-
| seri...
| tristor wrote:
| Well shit, I always preferred the old fully chlorinated
| stuff because it works better. When you say "chlorinated" I
| assume that means it contains chlorine, which isn't great,
| but is more an issue for chemical burns than anything, so
| you wear gloves and eye pro and don't worry about it. I
| never looked into it. I've probably inadvertently exposed
| myself to a /ton/ of TCE working on cars and other
| mechanical things. I buy brake cleaner by the case...
| sjg007 wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear that.
|
| TCE is a degreaser which is used to clean car parts so most
| likely.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Just another justification for my hatred of carpets.
| jedimastert wrote:
| The headline is /r/savedyoaclick bait.
|
| It's trichloroethylene, but only maybe?
| yourmom2 wrote:
| great comment bro thanks
| gabaix wrote:
| Little known fact: high concentration of TCE permeates the Bay
| Area in cites like Palo Alto and Mountain View. The concentration
| is so bad that these superfund sites are regularly monitored by
| the federal government.[1]
|
| I lived next to the superfund site of Palo Alto, which was right
| under Mayfield Soccer Complex. Little had been done to monitor
| the risks for the children [2]. Reading this article linking TCE
| to Parkinson's disease, I hope there will be more awareness about
| Silicon Valley toxic undergrounds.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/lens/the-superfund-
| sites-... [2] http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20130404/in-
| search-of-...
| gnicholas wrote:
| There's even a TCE site where Facebook used to be headquartered
| (between California Ave and Page Mill Road), where Stanford now
| has a faculty housing development. The university has stated
| that they built the homes with protection against TCE
| leakage/accumulation, but I've read that TCE can easily
| permeate PVC pipes that are often used for water distribution.
|
| My family decided not to live in this development (or in the
| nearby neighborhood) because of the risks of TCE contamination.
| But who knows what risks there are in the area we decided to
| live, which is right next to SLAC!
| ericbarrett wrote:
| Jogging through the hills of Stanford and Palo Alto in the 90s,
| you would occasionally smell something sweet, reminiscent of
| baking bread, even though there were no bakeries or homes
| nearby. I was told by an old-timer (worked in SV in the 60s and
| 70s) that's the smell of the outgassing TCE. Not sure if it's
| true, but it definitely made the smell less appealing.
| sbehlasp wrote:
| Surprise to see that we are pointing and blaming one chemical
| only here. PFAS, a class of more than 4,000 different chemicals,
| is everywhere [https://on.natgeo.com/2Q2UtMS] food, water we
| drink and even in our blood. We don't even know when and how we
| are consuming it directly or indirectly. Do we have any kind of
| full proof study about all 4000 chemicals, that how these
| chemicals would be affecting our health! I think nature has
| already been polluted/damaged to an extent which is kind-a
| irreversible. Hoping for the better world.
| sjg007 wrote:
| PFAS is on furniture, clothes, cooking ware, food containers,
| firefighting foam and so forth. The firefighting foam gets it
| into the water table as do badly managed dumps.
|
| It's been detected in milk, eggs, water..
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| I sometimes think back about our attitudes towards lead,
| mercury, and even radium[1], and I truly wonder how we survived
| as a specifies!
|
| I am grateful that collectively things seem to be improving.
| We're learning more about diseases, their causes, and their
| treatments.
|
| 1. https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/01/24/an-energy-drink-
| th...
| outworlder wrote:
| Frankly, this could be the Great Filter.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| This kind of thing is what eventually kills off Brewer's
| Yeast. The individual yeast cells keep making sugar into
| alcohol until the alcohol concentration is so great that
| they kill each other off.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| We don't even know how all of our bodily chemicals affect our
| health. It is because nature is inherently a messy and complex
| process. Unknowns are the default state and a fact of life.
|
| Now consuming them may not be ideal but the fear of the unknown
| is overemphasized. We already know from pharmacology that
| higher effectiveness needs fewer data instances to prove from
| the strength of the effect. The more powerful something's
| effect not noticing it becomes increasingly improbable as
| patterns should become increasingly obvious in large numbers.
| Try not to notice plutonium toxicity.
|
| The fact we aren't seeing more immediate effects from higher
| level of exposure suggests it is not catastrophic - may not be
| good but it is an implicit upper bound on harm based upon what
| we see cannot be possible. To give an absurd example we know
| PFAS does not cause people's heads to explode at current levels
| of exposure because there have been zero reports of people's
| heads exploding without a known cause.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _there have been zero reports of people 's heads exploding
| without a known cause._
|
| There is a long list of common and unexplained medical
| problems like fibromyalgia awaiting an explanation like "that
| water you've been drinking is toxic." There is no shortage of
| illnesses that could potentially be caused by a problem like
| that.
| yabones wrote:
| PFAS is going to be the asbestos of our generation, except it
| won't be so easy to get rid of this time around. It's more like
| the asbestos of every future generation until we find a way to
| reliably break it down.
| Layke1123 wrote:
| That or it will be a natural form of selection for old age,
| increasing human longevity at the expense of temporary
| population reduction. Let's hope artificial gene therapy is
| within our lifetimes or hope we drew the golden ticket.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| Is the chemical "clickbaitium"?
| yourmom2 wrote:
| uh oh... we got one of those sharp hackers over here
| feralimal wrote:
| Perhaps this is a water filter advert: "Using activated carbon
| filtration devices (like Brita filters) can help reduce TCE in
| drinking water"
|
| But really, how could they possibly narrow it down to that? How
| can they ignore all the metals that we are injected and sprayed
| with as possible alternative causes?
| odyssey7 wrote:
| If this product weren't already on the market, and this link was
| suspected, would it be easy for it to come to market in our
| regulatory environment?
|
| Now that it's on the market, and the link is suspected, how hard
| is it going to be to get it out of use?
| [deleted]
| dralley wrote:
| >Those near National Priorities List Superfund sites (sites known
| to be contaminated with hazardous substances such as TCE) are at
| especially high risk of exposure. Santa Clara county, California,
| for example, is home not only to Silicon Valley, but 23 superfund
| sites - the highest concentration in the country. Google Quad
| Campus sits atop one such site; for several months in 2012 and
| 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found employees
| of the company were inhaling unsafe levels of TCE in the form of
| toxic vapor rising up from the ground beneath their offices.
| ptudan wrote:
| I used to play basketball on this campus all the time! Sheesh
| jeffbee wrote:
| It's not like this is Google-specific. Santa Clara County is
| just toxic. All of this junk, for example, is built on a
| plume of TCE. https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3823386,-121.98
| 41579,458m/da...
| outworlder wrote:
| Just curious, what specifically are you pointing at? Is
| there any manufacturing going on? I'd think these are
| mostly office buildings.
| jeffbee wrote:
| It was semiconductor manufacturing before, then it was an
| empty lot, now its offices and parking. This would have
| been an orchard, 50 years ago.
| nanis wrote:
| There is always the problem of over time people not dying of
| other causes so that more get to live to the ages where they can
| get diseases that used to be rarer. Also, AFAIK, improvements
| have been made in the diagnosis of Parkinson's.
|
| > in the US, the number of people with Parkinson's has increased
| 35% the last 10 years
|
| 10 years ago, the oldest U.S. baby boomers were reaching 65. Now,
| they are reaching 75[1].
|
| Given the fact that birth rate went from 19/1000 to 27/1000
| between 1935 and 1946 and the fact that people born in 1946 faced
| a much friendlier environment to grow up in, the numbers are not
| surprising.
|
| The fact is, industry also grew at the same time, so it will
| always be possible to find positive correlations between
| prevalence of some disease and some industrial chemical.
|
| It is not impossible that a causal relationship exists, but that
| needs to be established using something other than simple
| correlations.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-20th_century_baby_boom#Nor...
| mrow84 wrote:
| "A 2008 peer-reviewed study in the Annals of Neurology, for
| example, found that TCE is "a risk factor for parkinsonism."
| And a 2011 study echoed those results, finding "a six-fold
| increase in the risk of developing Parkinson's in individuals
| exposed in the workplace to trichloroethylene (TCE).""
|
| It doesn't strike me as fair to dismiss studies like the ones
| quoted (from the article) as simple correlations.
| nanis wrote:
| > It doesn't strike me as fair to dismiss studies like the
| ones quoted (from the article) as simple correlations.
|
| I didn't see the particular studies and I am not dismissing
| them out of hand, but I've seen a lot of studies, lost a lot
| of battles against all sorts of unsound statistical analysis.
| When I taught Intro Stats, I had no trouble finding examples
| of what not to do to illustrate in class: Just look at the
| front page of the campus newspaper which seemed intent on
| filling pages with bogus "studies".
|
| Again, I am not calling this one[1] bogus, but I am going to
| point out that study seems to consist solely of finding
| people who have Parkinson's and have worked around the
| chemical.
|
| Causality requires (not p) => (not q).
|
| [1]: https://hero.epa.gov/hero/index.cfm/reference/details/re
| fere...
| gnramires wrote:
| This can be done by 'Controlling for age' in statistics. If
| your cohort gets older, you get more prevalence of old age
| diseases of course. But by isolating by sufficiently small age
| groups (assuming the age distribution is approximately
| constant, or flat, within a group[1]), we can tell if the rate
| per given age is increasing or not. In this case simple
| multivariate statistics to judge if the changes are
| significant.
|
| [1] The variation in distribution among age groups can be
| controlled by more sophisticated methods, but it may be
| sufficient to make the groups small and multivariate analysis
| (although results might be weakened by assumptions of
| independent errors if groups are too small).
| chemeng wrote:
| While this is always something to consider, generally, 6-fold
| increase in risk due to exposure is likely not just a
| population demographic artifact.
|
| TCE and its relation to Parkinson's has been studied for at
| least the last 15 years. Though I haven't come across anything
| definitive on the mechanism of action, there seems to be
| indication that a combination of TCE or its analogues combined
| with other risk factors (assumed to be genetic) generates
| substantial progressive dopaminergic neuron loss, a hallmark of
| Parkinson's disease progression.
| nanis wrote:
| > 6-fold increase in risk due to exposure
|
| Interestingly, the Guardian article does not cite a source
| for that claim, so it is impossible to evaluate it soundly.
|
| However, just above, it states:
|
| >> the number of people with Parkinson's has increased 35%
| the last 10 years
|
| which is completely in line with the increase in at risk
| population + improved probability of diagnosis.
|
| That doesn't mean there is no link.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| This is a very important, often overlooked point.
|
| Also food malnutrition is way less common, than it was before.
|
| But we also are exposed to many new chemicals, not occuring in
| nature, so we could not adopt to them.
|
| So ... I guess there is no definite, simple answer.
| bjornjajayaja wrote:
| Honestly what good comes out of any "industrial scale"
| chemical? I think people are screwed because this is _one_
| chemical; what about all of the synthetic materials in peoples
| houses these days (the carpet itself)?
|
| We need to go back to basics here instead of trying to over-
| science things. Bust out that bottle of vinegar and keep things
| simple in my opinion.
| allannienhuis wrote:
| The whole world runs on industrial scale chemicals. Virtually
| everything in our modern society relies on them. They are
| base inputs to almost every chain of goods from foodstuffs to
| textiles to manufactured items of every sort. Even your
| vinegar example is primarily produced as an industrial scale
| chemical.
| ddeck wrote:
| _> > in the US, the number of people with Parkinson's has
| increased 35% the last 10 years_
|
| _> 10 years ago, the oldest U.S. baby boomers were reaching
| 65. Now, they are reaching 75[1]._
|
| The numbers do match up rather well. The US population over the
| age of 65 has grown around 33% in the last 10 years.
|
| I see conflicting information regarding the average/median age
| at diagnosis, but it seems to be around there.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/POPTOTUSA647NWDB
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPPOP65UPTOZSUSA
| alcover wrote:
| > population over the age of 65 has grown around 33% in the
| last 10 years
|
| Which strikingly echoes GP's _" birth rate went from 19/1000
| to 27/1000 between 1935 and 1946"_.
|
| But 10 years too late ? I'm confused maybe.
| ddeck wrote:
| The data was intended to back up the GP's point, pointing
| out the growth in the underlying population of those
| diagnosed very closely mirrors the growth in number
| diagnosed.
| alcover wrote:
| I know. I meant the echoing wavefront seems 10y late :
| 1935+65 = 2000
| nanis wrote:
| > I know. I meant the echoing wavefront seems 10y late :
| 1935+65 = 2000
|
| Good point. I believe I was thinking about 75. 65 crept
| in because I was also going to mention that at the
| beginning of the US Social Security program (1935), the
| assumption was no one lived much beyond 65.
|
| Here is a table that might cast light on the diagnosis of
| Parkinson's by age: https://academic.oup.com/view-
| large/1251178
|
| Note population pyramids for 2000[1], 2010[2], and
| 2020[3].
|
| [1]: https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-
| america/2... [2]:
| https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-
| america/2... [3]:
| https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-
| america/2...
| robocat wrote:
| A comparison can still be made between the same age cohorts
| i.e. compare rates of Alzheimer's for the cohort 60 to 65 year
| olds. There is always a potential for confounding factors, but
| if the rates are up 35% for all cohorts then that says
| something.
|
| Also the beautiful flow graph
| https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fit,f_auto...
| (graph for US Women I think) does show that after about 70
| "mental" starts being a significant percentage of deaths,
| although Parkinson's is only one component of that I think.
|
| Source for graph is: https://flowingdata.com/2016/01/05/causes-
| of-death/
| nabla9 wrote:
| A six-fold increase in the risk in individuals exposed in the
| workplace to trichloroethylene is more like a natural
| experiment than "simple correlation".
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It's not the only thing they were exposed to though in the
| natural experiment, so it's entirely possible that third
| factor C is what's driving it.
|
| There are more studies according to the article that make the
| solid case, but one instance of correlation is not
| necessarily a smoking gun.
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(page generated 2021-04-08 23:01 UTC)