NEW ZEALAND – CLEAN, GREEN… AND POISONING OUR CHILDREN?
ADHD or attention deficit disorder… it’s everywhere! Kids in their millions are swallowing Ritalin type drugs daily, and in their wake, an ever growing torrent of the newly diagnosed. Theories about its growing prevalence abound. Is it modern parenting practice? Too much TV and screen time? Too much sugar and processed foods? I would argue that each of these factors has some impact on childhood behaviour and focus.
Now there is a new and fairly robust theory, and from my perspective it’s one of the most frightening. Children whose mothers are exposed to pesticides while they are pregnant are more likely to be destined destined for an ADHD diagnosis. This recent study published in the Environmental Health Perspectives, shows yet another troubling way in which exposure to organophosphate pesticides can throw the human body into turmoil.
Why do I find this latest finding frightening? Because organophosphates are everywhere, and it is a rare human being that does not have residues of these powerful chemicals in their bloodstream and tissue.
In this most recent study, researchers tested pregnant women for organophosphate chemicals, and found that the higher the residue in their urine during pregnancy, the more likely their offspring were to have ADHD symptoms at age 5. A ten times increase in pesticide residues in the mother’s urine, equated to a 500% increase in offspring ADHD by the age of 5. Interestingly, if the children themselves had organophosphate resides in their urine, but were not exposed in utero, their risk for ADHD still increased, but no as dramatically. Don’t take too much comfort from this though, as another study demonstrated that children with high organophosphate in the urine were twice as likely as those with undetectable levels to have ADHD.
It hardly seems like rocket science to me. After all organophosphates are designed to attack the nervous system of bugs, by affecting the neurotransmitters (brain chemicals that carry messages). One of these affected brain chemicals is acetylcholine, which is vital to the development and function of the human brain.
The good news (yes there is some!) is that swapping to an organic diet during pregnancy, and feeding your children organic fruits and vegetables, will radically decrease organophosphate exposure. A study in Environmental health Perspectives (2006: 114) looked at pesticide levels in children living in Seattle USA. For the first five days the children ate their usual shop bought, spayed diet. For the next five days they ate only organic foods; and finally went back to another 5 days of sprayed foods. Not surprisingly, researchers found that pesticide residues in their urine were high in the two “conventional food” phases, and virtually non-existent in the organic phase. Take home message? Organics protect our kids (and us) from damaging and toxic pesticide residues.
In New Zealand the Total Diet Survey has for years demonstrated that our pesticide exposure is many times greater than in other countries. The 1998 survey estimated Kiwi kids to have organophosphate exposure twenty times greater than their American counterparts! Forget the “clean, green NZ” propaganda. The truth is that our food and our environment is contaminated with a plethora of agricultural chemicals harmful to our nervous system and hormonal health.
Children actually come out worse off than adults when it comes to pesticide residues, as they eat proportionally more food than adults, and they also tend to eat more fruits and vegetables for their body size. The latest Total Diet Survey (2003/4) shows that young children get twice as much pesticide in their food compared with adult men.
What to do about all this bad news? It’s simple really. Make the choice to pay the extra, and convert your kitchen to organics. If you can’t go the whole hog, at least convert to organics for the foods most likely to contain organophosphate residues - bread and wheat products; pears, apples, nectarines, tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce.