Investigation of pesticide residue and acetylcholinesterase enzyme activity in Adana Ceyhan District aglicultural workers

Introduction and Objective: Pesticides; is one of the major environmental risks that cause disease and premature mortality in terms of community health. All of the communities, especially agricultural workers, are exposed to pesticides. To assess pesticide exposure, pesticide residue analyzes are performed in food, environment and in biological samples. The analysis of biological samples gives the environmental distributions and the exposure rates. Our aim in this thesis is; the aim of this study is to evaluate the difference between the pesticide practitioners who are directly exposed to pesticides in the province of Ceyhan, where agriculture is concentrated, and the pesticide residues and cholinesterase enzyme activities in the bodies of people who are not occupationally exposed to pesticides. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of pesticide practitioners and non-pesticide workers in Ceyhan province, Adana. The study is done by Fareed and his colleagues was taken as a reference; for the calculations made with the mean and standard deviation values using the sample size calculator program, 66 people (control-agriculture worker) were taken in each group with 80% power and 5% alpha value. During the period of agricultural spraying between March and June 2017; Blood samples and hair samples were taken from agricultural workers who applied pesticides in the province of Ceyhan and those who did not deal with agriculture living in the same region. The persons filled in the questionnaire and consent form developed by the researcher. In residue analysis, 144 pesticides were screened on LC / MSMS after pesticide extraction. The level of cholinesterase enzyme was measured in the auto analyzer device. The findings were analyzed by chi-square test, t-test, Mann-Whitney U test, Kurskal-Wallis test, Pearson correlation analysis and p value of 0.05 was considered significant. SPSS 20 for Windows package program was used for these analyses. Findings: Agricultural workers have been applied spraying for 18,2 ± 11,8 years , 63 agricultural workers (95,5%) did not had any spraying trainging, 49 agricultural workers (74,2%) do not use any personal protective equipments (mask, glove, bone, overalls, boots). A total of 31 pesticide active residues were identified in hair samples of all participants. When at least one pesticide active residue was detected in the entire agricultural workers group, no pesticide active residue was detected in the hair of 11(16,6%) of the control group. A total of 15 pesticide active substances were detected in the blood samples of all participants in the study. No pesticide active substance was detected in the blood of 4(6,06%) of the agricultural workers group and 14 (21,2%) of the control group. 20 of the active substances (64,5%) detected in the hair, 3 of the active substances (20%) detected in the blood were found to be significantly higher in the agricultural workers group than in the control group. (P <0.05). In the quantitative analysis of pesticide residues in the hair, a high concentration was found in the agricultural workers group at 6 points according to the control group. These substances are Acetamiprid (p<0,05), Metalaxyl M (p<0,001), Azoxystrobin (p<0,001), Metolachlor (p<0,01), Triadimefon (p<0,05) and Acetochlor (p<0,05). Five (16,1%) of the pesticide active substances found in the hair and seven (46,6%) of the pesticid active substances in the blood are banned pesticides. In 5 out of 66 agricultural workers (7.57%), the level of cholinesterase enzyme was lower than the laboratory reference range (<4.9 U / ml).Compared with the cholinesterase levels, the cholinesterase level in agricultural workers was significantly lower than the control group (p<0.01). In agricultural workers, the level of cholinesterase enzyme is decreasing as the annual number of agricultural spraying increases. Conclusions: Our study found that agricultural workers had a low of personal hygiene and not using personal protective equipment, insufficient information about possible health effects of pesticides, inadequate information and lack of education about safe application of pesticides, the prevalence of prohibited pesticide use due to lack of inspection. On the other hand it has been revealed that every part of society, especially those living in agriculture, as well as individuals who are exposed to occupational pesticides, are exposed to pesticides in a certain way due to environmental impact. The measures necessary to improve the protection of agricultural workers and reduce pesticide exposure of the population should be planned and implemented. This study can be considered as a preliminary assessment of exposure to pesticides in this region, especially agricultural workers, and the results can be extended to other regions. Key words: Agricultural Workers, Pesticide Exposure, Biological Monitoring