An innovative Spanish study has found a link between the pesticide picloram and the onset of colorectal cancer among people under 50.
Searching on specialized websites, picloram is described as a systemic herbicide used against broadleaf weeds, shrubs and woody plants. It is a pesticide considered particularly effective in pastures, forest areas, along roads and railways, as well as on industrial land. Its use is widespread, although among the general public its name is certainly less well known than other substances that have attracted far more controversy in recent years, such as glyphosate.
Picloram’s relative lack of notoriety is mainly due to one factor: until now, it has never been classified as carcinogenic. Until now, precisely because a study published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine has linked exposure to the substance with the sharp increase in colorectal cancers recorded among people under the age of 50.
The research was conducted by José A. Seoane of the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology in Barcelona, Spain. Together with colleagues who co-authored the analysis, he relied on large-scale epidemiological data and molecular biology analyses to answer a question that medicine has so far struggled to explain: while colorectal cancer rates are declining among older people, cases are steadily increasing among the under-50s.
“We first tried to compare tumors collected from people below that age threshold and from individuals over 70,” Seoane explained to the French newspaper Le Monde. The aim was to identify what are known as “epigenetic signatures” — molecular traces left on tissues — and determine which exposures may have generated the diseases.
To do so, the researchers carried out extensive data collection work, drawing from previous studies, each focused on a possible cause of disease: from air pollution and obesity to smoking, lifestyles, alcohol consumption and, indeed, several pesticides.
By cross-referencing statistical data with epigenetic signatures, the researchers realized that markers of exposure to picloram were overrepresented among patients affected by early-onset cancers. But that was not all. To further strengthen their hypothesis, they also analyzed pesticide use in 94 US counties between 1992 and 2012, comparing those figures with local cancer incidence data. The result was the same: exposure to picloram appeared correlated with cancer onset — even more so than glyphosate or atrazine.
Another reason why picloram was linked to colorectal cancer in people under 50 is that the pesticide was authorized in the 1960s. This means that today’s under-50 patients may have been exposed to it through food since childhood.
But the study’s main innovation lies in the fact that researchers did not stop at statistical analysis. Instead, they explored the mechanisms through which the substance may increase disease risk. Until now, regulatory agencies authorizing pesticides for commercial use have mainly focused on whether such substances can induce changes in cellular DNA. The Spanish analysis instead shows that some substances may “activate” certain genes without directly altering DNA itself, making individuals more predisposed to developing tumors. This finding could therefore call into question the very foundations of the methods currently used to determine whether substances contained in pesticides are dangerous to human health.
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