Caracterização do hemograma e perfil bioquímico sérico de agricultores fumageiros expostos a agrotóxicos na área rural de Arapiraca – AL

Abstract

Brazil became the largest consumer of pesticides in the world, answering in the Latin American market for 86% of these products. Tobacco crops uses pesticides in large scale to increase quality and productivity, being Arapiraca one of the main producers towns in the country. Pesticide exposure without the necessary cares and in a long term use can cause acute and chronic intoxications, leading to a variaty of illnesses. In this respect, the identification of biomarkers that may indicate a potencial physiological impairment and preventive cares are extremelly relevant for the health of rural workers exposed to these substances. This study aimed to characterize the CBC and serum biochemical profile of growers in order to identify variations that might be associated with exposure to pesticides. This is a cross-sectional analytical study in which 166 subjects participated in the biochemical and hematological analysis and answered a semistructured questionnaire on socioeconomic, demographics, lifestyle habits and occupational profile. A battery of blood tests was performed and mean values were compared between subgroups of individuals characterized by their exposure profile to the main chemical groups used. The characterization of the studied population shows that 60% were men, mean age 42 years, 62% had not completed primary education, one third of the sample were smokers, consuming on average 12 cigarettes per day, 61% consumed alcoholic beverages and of these 36.8% ingested up to three times per week. Half of these described themselves as mixed race and one-third black and 79% of farmers reported having direct contact with pesticides.The pesticides most commonly used were those belonging to pyrethroids, neonicotinoids, organophosphates and strobilurins groups. The most common symptoms reported were nausea (70%), vomiting (42%) and dizziness (40%), and 83.9% of individuals exposed to organophosphates had muscarinic symptoms. The comparative analysis of the tests between different subgroups of exposure showed significant differences for a number of variables. Significant differences were found in the organophosphate group (HDL, lipase, and platelets) in pyrethroids (potassium, hematocrit, hemoglobin, hemáicas, urea, ALT, uric acid and phosphorus) in neonicotinoid (erythrocytes, platelets, globulin, magnesium and urea) and strobilurins (LDH, GGT, lymphocyte globulin and magnesium). We identified in this study that exposure to specific groups of pesticides was associated to significant differences in several biochemical and hematological parameters blood count, suggestive of the interference of these pesticides on the physiology of the individuals.