Gardening Safety

[yoni4u]

When you learn the art of gardening, there are few safety considerations that you need to address. No matter what type of gardening project you are undertaking, be it a bloom of flowers, a bounty of vegetables or an entire backyard landscape, you will encounter many common safety issues.

One of the most common risks in gardening is exposing yourself to pollen, and activating pollen allergies. Most people suffer from some type of allergy, and when pollen is in the air and plants and flowers are blooming, it can be hard to spend any length of time gardening. If you know for a fact that you have pollen allergies, you need to consider them when you start gardening. People with particularly severe pollen allergies should probably avoid gardening all together.

Another allergy, although not as common, is an allergy to bee stings. Many people are so allergic to bee stings that they require medication to relieve the swelling and allergic reaction. If you are gardening during the late summer and early autumn, bees are especially prevalent outdoors. If you are gardening during this time, and are allergic to bees, limit your gardening time and take necessary precautions.

Sunburn is a very common risk while gardening. To protect yourself from sun damage, wear lightweight long sleeved shirts and long pants, if weather permits. Wearing long sleeved clothes will also prevent mosquito bites. Make sure to apply sunscreen on all areas that will be exposed during your gardening time. Don?t forget to cover the back of your neck and ears.

To avoid the heat when you are gardening, try to get most of your tasks done in the early morning. Keep in mind that the hottest part of the day is between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm, so plan your gardening activity accordingly. Although it may not seem like it, gardening is a terrific form of exercise. Knowing this, you should always include a bottle of water nearby while you are gardening.

Yours,

Yoni Levy.

[Billy]

Thank you for your well-intended (I presume) but ill-timed and condescending advice. It will be at least two months before most of us are warm, and with luck, three months before we risk heat stroke or bees. Perhaps you could repost these cautions for our slower and beginning gardeners when they (the advice, not the gardeners) become seasonally applicable.

[Bill]

I'm more concerned that Rotenone and Parkinson Disease may have a connection. May? Friends dad had Parkinson¹s and used Rotenone commercially. Organic pesticide may be a misnomer lulling us to be careless. Thinks that kill may be just that. Fishing with Rotenone was a S. American technique for fishing. Guess it is less violent then dynamite.

Bill

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: J Pineal Res. 2008 Mar;44(2):205-13. Links Melatonin reduces the neuronal loss, downregulation of dopamine transporter, and upregulation of D2 receptor in rotenone-induced parkinsonian rats. Lin CH, Huang JY, Ching CH, Chuang JI. Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. Parkinson's disease (PD) is a movement disorder resulting from nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurodegeneration. The impairment of mitochondrial function and dopamine synaptic transmission are involved in the pathogenesis of PD. Two mitochondrial inhibitors,

1-methyl-4-phenylpyridine (MPP(+)) and rotenone, have been used to induce dopaminergic neuronal death both in in vitro and in vivo models of PD. Because the uptake of MPP(+) is mediated by the dopamine transporter (DAT), we used a cell-permeable rotenone-induced PD model to investigate the role of DAT and dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) on dopaminergic neuronal loss. Rotenone subcutaneously infused for 14 days induced PD symptoms in rats, as indicated by reduced spontaneous locomotor activity (hypokinesis), loss of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH, a marker enzyme for dopamine neurons) immunoreactivity in the substantia nigra and striatum, obvious alpha-synuclein accumulation, downregulated DAT protein expression, and upregulated D2R expression. Interestingly, rotenone also caused significant noradrenergic neuronal loss in the locus coeruleus. Melatonin, an antioxidant, prevented nigrostriatal neurodegeneration and alpha-synuclein aggregation without affecting the rotenone-induced weight loss and hypokinesis. However, rotenone-induced hypokinesis was markedly reversed by the DAT antagonist nomifensine and body weight loss was attenuated by the D2R antagonist sulpiride. In addition, both antagonists significantly prevented the reduction of striatal TH or DAT immunoreactivity but not the loss of nigral TH- and DAT-immunopositive neurons. These results suggested that oxidative stress and DAT downregulation are involved in the rotenone-induced pathogenesis of nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurodegeneration, whereas D2R upregulation may simply represent a compensatory response. PMID: 18289173 [PubMed - in process]

[Billy]

The pain of not knowing touches more people than those immediately affected.

Many researchers believe that several factors combined are involved: free radicals, accelerated aging, environmental toxins, and genetic predisposition. Two of these should be controllable: free radicals and environmental toxins.

Free radical can be controlled with anti-oxidants found in fresh fruits and vegetables.

Toxicity, however, isn't always as obvious as what happened in Bhopal, India. When guinea pigs (human or otherwise) don't immediately drop stone cold dead after they are administered a drug (re: chemical), there is always marketing wiggle room. The rise in cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic fatigue, cancer, autism, SIDS and a host of other plagues have no obvious reason. What we do know is that industrial chemicals, errant pharmaceuticals, and pesticide residues have invaded our environment since the end of WWII. The chemicals come on and in our food (sometimes added, sometimes contaminated), our drinking water (agricultural run off, industrial dumping, pharmaceuticals that survive treatment plants that find their way back into our drinking water), and in the air (especially around refineries and smoke stacks). The worry is amplified by magnitudes when presumed quantities of a single chemical are reassuringly, exceedingly small, but no one knows the risks of synergistic interactions between multiple chemicals and our bodies, especially young developing bodies.

What most facilitates these chemicals into our bodies?

Lobbyi$t$.