Environmental conditions can have a direct impact on many aspects of your health. For example, it is well known that eating certain foods or being exposed to certain products can dramatically increase your risk of some types of cancer. One new study published in the journal JAMA Network Open has found that people who live within two miles of a golf course may be up to three times more likely to develop Parkinson’s Disease, which is a progressive neurological disorder.

The study suggests that environmental risks associated with the golf courses such as pesticide use and groundwater contamination may be contributing to this increased risk. The study looked at the medical records of more than 5000 people who lived in southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin during a time period ranging from 1991 to 2015. What they found was that those who were living between one and two miles from the golf course were as much as 198% more likely to develop Parkinson’s than those in a control group.

Golf courses in the United States use large volumes of pesticides to ensure their grass is in pristine condition for the golfers, so this may be one of the primary factors in the elevated risk. In the paper, the researchers wrote:

“The odds of PD were relatively constant within close proximity to a golf course and decreased linearly as distance increased; individuals living farther from a golf course had reduced odds of PD, decreasing relative to the distance from the nearest golf course.”

While on the surface the hypothesis that the pesticides are causing the elevated risk of Parkinson’s, not everyone agrees with that conclusion. Some experts believe that this is an overly simplistic explanation and the evidence is not strong enough to definitively link the two. David Dexter, Parkinson’s UK director of research, commented in a statement:

“This study suggests an association between pesticides and Parkinson’s, however there are some important limitations in the methodology to be aware of. Firstly, Parkinson’s starts in the brain ten-15 years before diagnosis and the study didn’t only use subjects who permanently lived in the area. This would not only affect participants’ exposure, but also suggests their Parkinson’s could have started before they moved around a golf course. The population was also not matched for location with 80 percent of the Parkinson’s subjects living in urban areas, compared to only 30 percent of controls, hence other factors like air pollution from motor vehicles etc. could also account for some of the increases in Parkinson’s incidence.”

The researchers from this study would undoubtedly agree that further analysis and more studies would be beneficial. Finding a direct cause for Parkinson’s Disease has been very difficult, as has coming up with effective treatment options. It is likely that there are multiple potential causes for the debilitating disease, but if it can be shown that exposure to pesticides is a significant factor, it could prompt changes to the way golf courses, and others, care for their grass.

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