There is increasing evidence of an association between long-term environmental exposure to pesticides and neurodegenerative disorders; however, the relationship with epilepsy has not been addressed thus far. This study was aimed at determining the prevalence and risk of developing epilepsy among people from South-East Spain living in areas of high vs. low exposure to pesticides based on agronomic data. The study population consisted of 4007 subjects with a diagnosis of epilepsy and 580,077 control subjects adjusted for age, sex and geographical area. Data were collected from hospital records of the Spanish health care system (basic minimum dataset) between the years 1998 and 2010. The prevalence of epilepsy was significantly higher in areas of greater pesticide use relative to areas of lesser use. Overall, an increased risk of epilepsy was observed in the population living in areas of high vs. low use of pesticides (OR: 1.65; p < 0.001). Although this study was exploratory in nature, the results suggest that environmental exposure to pesticides might increase the risk of having epilepsy.

越来越多的证据表明，长期暴露于农药的环境与神经退行性疾病之间存在关联。然而，到目前为止，与癫痫的关系尚未得到解决。这项研究的目的是根据农艺学数据确定居住在高农药暴露水平和低农药暴露水平的西班牙东南部人群中癫痫的患病率和患病风险。研究人群包括4007名诊断为癫痫的受试者和580077名根据年龄，性别和地理区域调整的对照受试者。数据收集自1998年至2010年西班牙医疗保健系统的医院记录（基本最低数据集）。在农药使用量较高的地区，癫痫的患病率相对于农药使用较少的地区要高得多。全面的，居住在农药使用量较高或较低的地区的人群中，患癫痫病的风险增加（OR：1.65； p <0.001）。尽管这项研究本质上是探索性的，但结果表明，环境中接触杀虫剂可能会增加患癫痫的风险。