Can bees be used as a pesticide toxicity evaluation model for humans?
The associate professor Dr. Alex Lu from the Department of Environmental Health of Harvard University visited the Cyprus International Institute for Environmental and Public Health of the CUT under research collaboration. The professor presented his scientific findings which showed, for the first time worldwide, pesticides, especially neonicotinoids, to be associated with the global phenomenon of early bee colony collapse and their premature death especially in winter. In the winter, the bees are forced to produce heat generating high temperatures inside the hive. Systematic bee pesticide exposure burderns the physiological mechanism of bees by premature aging thus bees are not able to cope with the high energy requirements needed in winter, resulting to their exit from the hive and death. This biological pesticide toxicity mechanism, as explained by Dr. Alex Lu, can potentially affect humans even at very low concentrations through diet and conventional fruit and vegetable consumption. An important way to reduce our exposure to pesticides is a systematic diet with organic food. The Cyprus International Institute for Environmental and Public Health collaborates with Dr. Alex Lu in designing an intervention study for children who will be fed exclusively with organic food in Cyprus through the ORGANIKO LIFE + project.