JAMA publishes paper on Parkinsons if you live near a golf course...
 

Recent (May, 2025) paper from the Journal of the American Medical Association finds increased risk of Parkinsons disease if you live within 3 miles of a golf course.

Cut-and-pasted from the paper:
"Question Does living within proximity to a golf course affect the risk of Parkinson disease (PD)?

Findings This case-control study found the greatest risk of PD within 1 to 3 miles of a golf course, and that this risk generally decreased with distance. Effect sizes were largest in water service areas with a golf course in vulnerable groundwater regions.

Meaning These findings suggest that pesticides applied to golf courses may play a role in the incidence PD for nearby residents."

and...

"Conclusions and Relevance In this population-based case-control study, the greatest risk of PD was found within 1 to 3 miles of a golf course and risk generally decreased with distance. Associations with the largest effect sizes were in water service areas with a golf course and in vulnerable ground water regions."

Just a moment...

It’s a deeply flawed study, I’m surprised JAMA even published it

Plus The Villages doesn’t get their water from shallow municipal wells. Such hyperbole that has little basis in reality.

That "paper" is nonsense and it's already been beaten to death on TOTV, Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter and every social media site in the world.

They motivation for the study was ... "We hypothesized that individuals with addresses history in proximity to golf courses would have greater risk of incident PD compared with those who lived further away". Funny how their so-called study, confirmed what they wanted it to.

& as it applies to The Villages and most any place with a municipal water supply:

"Finally, our analysis of municipal wells revealed no association between PD risk and living in water service areas with a shallow municipal well (aOR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.24-1.64) or with a municipal well on a golf course (aOR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.21-1.50) (eTable 4 in Supplement 1)."

My father never lived near a golf course or ever went golfing yet he had Parkinson's disease for several years before he passed away.

Yes

But are you? JAMA's credibility has tanked in the last decade.

Can't be true! Wouldn't there be more than ten or so Parkinson's clubs in TV??
Been here almost 13 years. Diagnosed with Parkinson's 3 1/2 years ago.

JAMA study on Parkinsons
 

Following a post in which excerpts from a JAMA study were posted, several replies were posted indicating things to the effect of the study being flawed, JAMA has been discredited, etc., but with no support or study to the contrary being specifically cited. One poster suggested that the JAMA study was conducted in a way in which their desired result would be confirmed. But could it be that the replies suggesting, without support, that there is no correlation is similarly the same confirmation bias on the other side? I'm not trying to be argumentative, or suggest that I know anything one way or the other, but rather honestly trying to find out the truth since I live on a golf course. Is there and study or other credible source that can be cited that is the definitive final answer to this debunking JAMA, if there ever is such a thing a definitive final answer?

Isolated case, my FIL was a large animal vet tending to herds of cattle. The herds were often in close proximity of other ag fields that sprayed chemicals such as those cited in the JAMA article. This was in the 60s and 70s when little was known on possible PD causes. He developed PD in his mid 40s and was forced into medical retirement. After his retirement he did lots of reading about possible causes and was a firm believer that his condition may have been brought on by the environmental factors.
Just relaying his story, not here to start an argument.

Start with this, there are plenty of true experts without an agenda that dispute the findings of this study:

"But not everybody agrees with that assessment. Experts have called the conclusion "reductive," arguing that the evidence is simply not strong enough to draw a definitive line between the prevalence of Parkinson's and the pesticides used at golf courses in the US.
"This study suggests an association between pesticides and Parkinson’s, however there are some important limitations in the methodology to be aware of," said Parkinson’s UK director of research David Dexter in a statement. "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," he added.
"Many studies have investigated whether pesticides increase the risk of developing Parkinson’s in different populations around the world," Parkinson's UK research lead Katherine Fletcher added. "The results have been varied, but overall suggest that exposure to pesticides may increase the risk of the condition."
"However, the evidence is not strong enough to show that pesticide exposure directly causes Parkinson’s," she added, arguing the study is "reductive" and "doesn’t take into account how someone might have been exposed to pesticides at their workplace or whether they have a genetic link to the condition."

It could be that more older people are able to afford golf course views, therefore more older people live on golf courses, and more older people get Parkinson's than younger people. Therefore, the more money you have and the older you are, the better chance you'll get Parkinsons...therefore, wealth and age cause Parkinsons, not chemicals.

Having read the article, there are many problems with this study. Their "27 county area" was in the same geographic area. They only studies shallow groundwater sources, not applicable in TV. The control group might not have been adequately matched. And in the end, their conclusion was that there was a "correlation", not causation. This "study" has garnered much more publicity than it deserves.

Seems to me that the golf pros that are playing golf tournaments would have a high degree of PD since they spend five days a week on a golf course up to 4 plus hours each day. Haven’t heard of any pros getting PD have you?

I had a cousin hit by a car and he didn't even have a driver's license.

Well, if this JAMA article has been debunked on TOTV, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all social media in the world, I guess we will just need to wait for Reddit and perhaps the Shopping Channel to weigh in before we make any rash judgements.