A new study from researchers at the University of Iowa College of Public Health suggests that people who have higher levels of a chemical in their body that indicates exposure to commonly used insecticides die of cardiovascular disease at a significantly higher rate.

Findings from the study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, suggest those who have high levels of exposure to pyrethroid insecticides are three times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than people with low or no exposure.

Epidemiology Prof. Wei Bao was the study’s corresponding author. Co-authors were post-doctoral researcher Buyun Liu and Occupational and Environmental Health Prof. Hans-Joachim Lehmler in the UI College of Public Health and Derek Simonsen, a UI graduate student in human toxicology. It was published in the Dec. 30, 2019, issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.

Several media outlets covered the paper’s publication, including:

• Iowa Now
• New York Times
• Cedar Rapids Gazette
• Consumer Reports
• US News & World Report
• Health Day
• WebMD
• Medical Xpress
• MedPage Today
• NIH Research Matters