Environmental and occupational exposures and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in New England

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Neurodegener Dis
• Personal Author:
  Andrew, Angeline S. ; Caller, Tracie A. ; Tandan, Rup ; Duell, Eric J. ; Henegan, Patricia L. ; Field, Nicholas ; Bradley, Walter G. ; Stommel, Elijah W.
• Description:
  Background ; Recent data provide support for the concept that potentially modifiable exposures are responsible for sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). ; Objective ; To evaluate environmental and occupational exposures as risk factors for sporadic ALS. ; Methods ; We performed a case-control study of ALS among residents of New England. The analysis compared questionnaire responses from 295 patients with a confirmed ALS diagnosis to those of 225 controls without neurodegenerative illness. ; Results ; Self-reported job or hobby-related exposure to one or more chemicals, such as pesticides, solvents, or heavy metals, increased the risk of ALS (adjusted odds ratio (OR) 2.51 95%CI 1.64–3.89). Industries with higher toxicant exposure potential (construction, manufacturing, mechanical, military, or painting) were associated with elevated occupational risk (adjusted OR 3.95 95%CI 2.04–8.30). We also identified increases in the risk of ALS associated with frequent participation in water sports, particularly water-skiing (adjusted OR 3.89 95%CI 1.97–8.44). Occupation and water-skiing both retained independent statistical significance in a composite model containing age, gender, and smoking status. ; Conclusions ; Our study contributes to a growing body of literature implicating occupational- and hobby-related toxicant exposures in ALS etiology. These epidemiologic study results also provide motivation for future evaluation of water-body related risk factors.
• Subjects:
  • Aged
  • Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
  • Case-Control Studies
  • Environmental Exposure
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • New England
  • Occupational Exposure
  More +
• Keywords:
  • environmental
  • exposure
  • occupation
  • toxicant
  • water
• Source:
  Neurodegener Dis. 17(2-3):110-116
• Pubmed ID:
  28122372
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC5383428
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  KL2 TR001088/TR/NCATS NIH HHSUnited States/ ; R01 TS000245/TS/ATSDR CDC HHSUnited States/ ; UL1 TR001086/TR/NCATS NIH HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  17
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/45012/cdc_45012_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 85.09 KB]
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:0a1f5f27328dc1bfa408ba6ef344dcbc926026bed23cd6193a556bdeeb706d19aaafefd7e83b91872e991fd99409e86aa3cd7f18aebd51c2bdd530e084164a7d