Ten Years of Eating Organic Foods Does Little To Reduce Your Risk of Cancer
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
There is a widespread belief that conventional use of pesticides, antibiotics and other factors in “industrial” farming may promote the incidence of cancers – a risk that could be avoided by eating “organic”.
According to a paper by Kathryn Bradbury and colleagues, published in the British Journal of Cancer, this may not quite be the case.
The researchers examined prospective data of 620,000 middle-aged UK women on the relationship between the incidence of a variety of cancers and self-reported consumption of organic foods.
Over the 9.3 years of follow-up, there was no relationship between the consumption of organic foods and the incidence of all cancers.
In a subset analyses there was a statistically ‘borderline’ reduction in non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a finding that is perhaps more attributable to statistical chance than to any plausible biological hypothesis.
So, while eating “organic” may have a certain “healthfulness” appeal, a lower risk of cancer may not be a notable benefit.
@DrSharma
Edmonton, AB
Bradbury KE, Balkwill A, Spencer EA, Roddam AW, Reeves GK, Green J, Key TJ, Beral V, & Pirie K (2014). Organic food consumption and the incidence of cancer in a large prospective study of women in the United Kingdom. British journal of cancer PMID: 24675385
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Tuesday, April 22, 2014
I will continue to eat organic.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Is 10 years long enough for this kind of study? My brother had a rare cancer of the thyroid that is believed to be related to his prenatal exposure to radiation from nuclear testing off the coast of Scotland in the late 1950s. He was not diagnosed until he was 17, although he was told he likely developed the cancer while still a fetus. I assume this researcher will revisit this group 10 years from now?
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
@Anne: I guess they will but I am not holding my breath.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
This is a rather interesting post considering it is Earth Day and organic highly flogged as better
Monday, April 28, 2014
The American Ped Society does recommend giving infants/children organic if possible. You can find their very thoughtful discussion/position paper on their website.
Very important to note that there are carcinogens (things that trigger cancer), and procarcinogens (things that help cancer grow). A 10 year study would only be looking at whether cancer grew enough to be detected, it wouldn’t identify initiation or slow growing cancers, and it wouldn’t be enough to detect any changes in cancer growth.