Let's study "the environment-health relationship", urges Guillaume Decocq

• Microplastics found in the blood, endocrine disruptors in large numbers, pesticides in tap water, all of this has an impact on our health, according to Guillaume Decocq, professor of pharmacy.

• In his book

  Boomerangs, how the harm to our environment endangers human health

  (Les Editions du Rocher), he dissects the impacts of environmental changes on our health.

• The professor of pharmacy pleads for an ecology of health.

  “The goal is to attack the source of the evil rather than just fighting the consequences.

  »

Fires, drought, heat waves: these images quickly come to mind when we think of the effects of climate and environmental change.

But we never think of neurodegenerative diseases, asthma, cancers, epidemics, diabetes, reproductive disorders, intestinal diseases.

Yet environmental degradation also endangers our health.

In his book

(Les Editions du Rocher) which will be released on January 4, Guillaume Decocq, professor of pharmacy at the University of Picardie Jules-Verne and director of research at the CNRS, dissects one by one the impacts of environmental changes on our health.

Ubiquitous plastic, endocrine disruptors, air pollution, pesticides, these changes to our environment have an impact on our well-being, as he explains to

.

This book is a plea for an ecology of health.

Can you explain this concept?

The principle is to understand human health, in particular diseases that are of environmental origin, through an ecosystemic vision, that is to say the disruptions in the functioning of ecosystems.

The goal is to attack the source of the evil rather than just fighting the consequences.

We will look for the root cause of the disease to try to eliminate its origin.

How did you come up with the idea of ​​carrying out this survey?

I am a pharmacist by training and, for twenty-five years, I have been teaching at university the interactions between the environment and health.

And in twenty-five years, I see that things haven't changed much.

The environmental causes of disease are still not taken into account.

There is a very strong disconnect between human health and ecology.

In your book, you explain that the appearance of plastic in our societies does not only harm the planet and marine animals, it also harms our organism.

Can you explain the impact of microplastics, which we inhale and ingest, on our health?

The impact of plastic on our health is still very little known.

We are only beginning to study it.

For the first time, a study carried out in 2022 shows the presence of nanoplastics in our blood.

We also find plastic in our digestive tract.

For now, we are at the stage of highlighting and quantifying our exposure to microplastics and nanoplastics.

But the effect released by the chemical compound is not yet known.

It is not yet known, but you cite a study that shows a greater presence of plastic in the stools of people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) compared to healthy people.

Yes, but that's just an observation.

No causal relationship could be demonstrated between IBD and the presence of plastic in the body.

But once we have made this observation, we will look further.

These diseases are recent and are exploding in industrialized countries, such as France, which is particularly affected.

Today, we do not yet know the cause of these pathologies.

Very strong arguments show that it is an environmental disease.

We have doubts about certain pesticides or plastic, but we are currently unable to say whether it is linked to one pollutant or to several.

What we have no doubt about, you write in your book, is the link between Parkinson's disease and certain pesticides.

This pathology can be considered as an occupational disease for farmers, since 2012, due to their prolonged exposure to phytosanitary products.

Can you explain the link between exposure to certain pesticides and the occurrence of neurodegenerative diseases?

For a disease to be recognized as an occupational disease, there really must be solid proof.

In this case, it is a very direct mechanism because the chemical molecules used in pesticides directly destroy neurons.

Organophosphates, for example, such as chlordecone, which has been widely used in the West Indies, are now used to reproduce the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in animals when antiparkinsonian drugs are being developed.

Here again, we started with studies that simply observed the occurrence of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, in people exposed to certain pesticides.

Secondly, we were able to demonstrate the impact of certain phytosanitary products.

Another organophosphate, S-metolachlor, was recently found in tap water in France.

And you explain in the book that very shortly after the release of this study, the ANSES (National Food Safety and Health Agency) raised the tolerance thresholds in terms of water compliance.

Faced with this grim news, what can we expect in the future?

Health practitioners, such as pharmacists and doctors, should be made more aware of these issues.

This is a subject that is very little taught in France.

While it seems to me absolutely fundamental to fight against certain pathologies of environmental origin.

The National Academy of Pharmacy has just taken a stand, a fortnight ago, to demand systematic teaching of these questions in health studies.

It is also important to study the relationship between environment and health in research.

The media is able to shine the spotlight on a particular aspect, like glyphosate or neonicotinoids, but each time it's a small piece.

What is missing is the big picture.

Pesticides affect biodiversity, which itself has consequences for infectious diseases.

Everything is connected.

When we act in one part of the ecosystem, it will affect all the other components.

Many things are preventable because the starting point is often man-made alterations.

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• Health

• Ecology

• Environment

• Planet

• pesticides

• Glyphosate

• Pollution

• Plastic

• Disease