Golf courses are meticulously maintained with a variety of chemicals, including pesticides. But living too close to finely groomed greens and fairways could increase one’s risk of developing Parkinson’s disease (PD) by up to 126 percent, according to a study in JAMA Network Open.
The article’s authors stress that the research doesn’t establish a strict cause-and-effect relationship between golf course proximity and neurodegenerative disease. They wrote that a “complex interaction” between environmental factors and genetics likely contribute to susceptibility to the disease. However, they identify pesticides as one such factor.
“Golf courses are often treated with pesticides to maintain the aesthetic standards for putting greens and fairways, and in the U.S., pesticide application to golf courses can be up to 15 times higher compared with countries in Europe,” according to the study.
