Does the consumption of organic products the risk of developing cancer?

In the new study, scientists have tried to answer the question: can organic food reduce cancer risk?

Organic food as a niche product, appeared on the market just a few decades ago, but is now present in most grocery stores worldwide. In short, to classify food products as organic, farmers and producers have to produce them without the use of synthetic fertilizers, genetically modified organisms or pesticides.

Many consumers believe that eating organic food is more healthy. It is logical to assume that eating fewer pesticides is useful. However, scientists still clonality ways to prove or disprove that organic food has neoprimitivizma for health. Scientists know that large doses of some pesticides are potentially carcinogenic, but the effects long-term effects of small doses of pesticides on the body chelovecescie to be examined.

Throughout life, each of us periodically faced with the impact of a cocktail of chemicals from the food we eat, the water we drink and even the air you breathe. All this makes it difficult to study socialsecurity just food chemistry. But since organic food contains significantly less pesticide than non-organic, supporters of a healthy lifestyle has long been suggested that it may have a number of health benefits.

Organic food pesticides and cancer

The researchers investigated the influence of pesticides in connection with such health effects as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, infertility and asthma.

To date, only one study has examined the risk of developing cancer and the impact on the risk of consumption of organic food. The authors of this study in 2014 concluded that consumption of organic food is not affected at all, or minimally affected, the risk of cancer, with the possible exception of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Communication with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is important because earlier research has linked three pesticides (glyphosate, Malathion and diazinon) with this type of cancer.

Recently, scientists decided to test this theory. Last week they published their results in JAMA Internal Medicine. Have uchaneishvili data from the French cohort NutriNet-Sant, large-scale, ongoing study examining a variety of associations between health and nutrition. They took information about 68946 adults between 2009 and 2016.

The results of the study

The research team collected information about the diet and a large number of additional factors, including age, gender, professional status and education level of people. They also recorded the amount of sun exposure to the participants, the use of dietary supplements, marital status, monthly income, weight, height, General health status and certain lifestyle factors.

Two months after the registration of the project, the researchers asked the participants about the use of products из16 various organic groups. Depending on how much of them they consume, and how often do scientists assigned each person a score of 32-point scale.

Each participant also filled out a 24-hour review of food for 3 randomly selected days. The researchers monitored each participant for an average of 4.5 years. During this time, there were 1340 new diagnoses of cancer. Even after adjusting the data for other dietary factors the results were as expected, so the authors concluded:

A higher frequency of consumption of organic food was associated with a decreased risk of developing cancer.

People who consumed the highest amount of organic products, the risk of cancer during follow-up was 25 percent less, compared to those who consume the least amount of organic products. In particular, there was a reduction in risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and postmenopausal breast cancer. But at the same time, the authors write that with other types of cancer no Association was found.

The authors understand that you need to do more work before they will be able to confirm their findings. However, if organic food really lowers the risk of developing cancer, it would allow doctors to recommend this food to those who are most at risk.

Organic food and organic people

Assessment of the impact of any type of food on health is associated with various difficulties, but the measurement of effect of organic food is associated with even more problems.

The main problem is that people who prefer to eat organic food, and tend to have other healthy habits that go hand-in-hand with a healthy lifestyle. For example, people who choose organic food are also likely to be more physically active, less likely to smoke, have higher incomes and are more likely to follow a relatively healthy diet. All these factors combine to influence the risk of developing cancer in humans.

Another complication is that organic products span multiple product groups: fish and bacon to the Swiss chard. Consequently, scientists can classify the man who daily eats organic beef, as someone who eats a lot of organic products. However, today we know that eating lots of red meat is a risk factor for developing colon cancer. Perhaps this example is a bit extreme, but it makes it easy to understand that research on the effects of organic food on human health is a minefield.

Despite the fact that this study took into account more refinement factors, is required to conduct much larger and longer studies before we can definitively say that organic food reduces cancer risk.