RE: Two Commonly Used Pesticides May Be Interfering With Melatonin And Causing Disease

[beneform]

I have so many questions about this.

How much does carbaryl and carbofuran interfere with melatonin?
Do these pesticides diffuse through the skin?
And would washing fruits and vegetables with carbaryl and carbofuran remove wash it away?

Comments

[justtryme90]

They don't, they bind to the melatonin receptor. Which melatonin also binds to. This receptor is involved in a number of downstream pathways some of which regulate our sleep-wake cycle.

Yes both Carbaryl and Carbofuran can diffuse through the skin.

Would washing fruits and vegetables remove them yes, though if recently applied they may be present in the fruit/vegetable (more an issue for home gardeners, store bought would be long past the metabolic breakdown time and they would be long gone).

[beneform]

Ok, thanks for the clarification! So when the author talks about melatonin interference, what he really means is carbaryl and carbofuran interfering with its receptors.

That being said, if melatonin couldn't bind with its receptor, wouldn't that increase melatonin's concentration in the body? For example, the author writes "there is growing evidence that melatonin has important roles to play in cardiovascular disease - heart attacks, angina, heart failure etc" and "decreased levels of melatonin have been associated with higher levels of many types of cancer". Wouldn't that help combat these things? Or is this related more to sleep?

[justtryme90]

The role it plays in those chronic illnesses are seemingly due to melatonin's role in maintaining the sleep-wake cycle. Disruption of that bodily circadaen rhythem is thought to increase the likelihood of cancer, diabetes, heart disease etc.

It's not about the intracellular concentration of melatonin, it's variable and is cycled every day. It's more about activation of the melatonin receptors at the wrong time and disruption of the circadaen rhythem. At least that was how I understood the paper.

[thecryptofiend]

How much does carbaryl and carbofuran interfere with melatonin?

Good question I think in the paper they used a few measurements the simplest one being that in the docking simulations they bound about 20-30% less than melatonin itself which is quite a strong effect. How this applies in a living subject is hard to say though and would need further research.

And would washing fruits and vegetables with carbaryl and carbofuran remove wash it away?

It certainly helps to reduce exposure - some small amounts might still remain. There is a paper which discusses it here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3907644/

Here is an excerpt:

"In case of carbaryl the initial deposit as a result of two application dosages reduced to 5.94 and 12.24 ppm respectively by tap water washing of okra for 30 s. Thus, washing decreased the carbaryl deposit by 66.12 and 69.55% for lower and higher application dosage, respectively. Various pesticide decontamination processes like washing the fruits with water were reported to dislodge the residues to varying degrees depending on constitution of the fruit, chemical nature of the pesticide and environmental conditions. Washing was the most effective means of removing pesticide residues and minimizing dietary intakes from cabbage (Yuan et al.2009). Elkins et al. (1968) also reported that cold water washing removed 96% malathion residue from beans."