Dancing to the Health Tune could be described as "two steps forward - one step back" Agggh! Know anybody into organic gardening? Pass this along!
* Pesticide link to Parkinson's Gardeners could be at risk of contracting Parkinson's disease through a commonly-used pesticide, scientists have suggested. Experiments on rats showed a strong link between ROTENONE - a natural product extracted from the derris plant, and a mainstay of organic farms and gardens - and the disabling illness which causes muscle rigidity and shaking. Professor Tim Greenamyre, of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, writing in the journal Nature Neuroscience, says rats repeatedly given rotenone not only develop the symptoms of Parkinson's but acquire the distinctive microscopic lumps in the brain, known as Lewy bodies, that are a sure sign of the disease. "These results," he adds, "indicate that chronic exposure to a common pesticide can reproduce the anatomical, neurochemical, behavioural and neuropathological features of Parkinson's disease." Source: Staff reporter Useful link: http://www.shef.ac/uk/misc/group/epda/parkuk/htm FYI - Robert Bartell
