Organic cancer prevention
Low-toxin diets mean less disease
Organic diets reduce cancer risk, according to a study from JAMA Internal Medicine. Worldwide, the number of new cases of cancer was estimated in 2012 at more than 14 million, and cancer remains one of the leading causes of mortality in the US and Europe. Among the environmental risk factors for cancer, a review in the Archives of Toxicology concluded that the role of pesticides for the risk of cancer could not be doubted given the growing body of evidence linking cancer development to pesticide exposure. While dose responses of such molecules or possible cocktail effects are not well known, an increase in toxic effects has been suggested even at low concentrations of pesticide mixtures, say researchers from France in the journal Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis.
Meanwhile, the organic food market continues to grow rapidly in the US and European countries, propelled by environmental and health concerns. Organic food standards do not allow the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and genetically modified organisms and restrict the use of veterinary medications. As a result, organic products are less likely to contain pesticide residues than conventional foods, according to the British Journal of Nutrition and European Food Safety Agency (EFSA).
According to a EFSA, 44% of conventionally produced food samples contained 1 or more quantifiable residues, while 6.5% of organic samples contained measurable pesticide residues. In line with this report, diets mainly consisting of organic foods were linked to lower urinary pesticide levels compared with “conventional diets” in an observational study of adults carried out in the United States. This finding was more marked in a clinical study from Australia and New Zealand (a 90% reduction in total dialkyphosphate urinary biomarkers was observed after an organic diet intervention) conducted in adults.
Because of their lower exposure to pesticide residues, it can be hypothesized that high organic food consumers may have a lower risk of developing cancer. Furthermore, natural pesticides allowed in organic farming in the European Union exhibit much lower toxic effects than the synthetic pesticides used in conventional farming.
Nevertheless, only one study to date has focused on the association between frequency of organic food consumption and cancer risk, reporting a lower risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) only. However, consumption of organic food was assessed using only a basic question. Multiple studies have reported a strong positive association between regular organic food consumption and healthy dietary habits and other lifestyles. Hence, these factors should be carefully accounted for in etiological studies in this research field.
In a population-based cohort study among French adult volunteers, researchers sought to prospectively examine the association between consumption frequency of organic foods, assessed through a score evaluating the consumption frequency of organic food categories, and cancer risk in the ongoing, large-scale French NutriNet-Santé cohort. The follow-up dates of the study were May 10, 2009, to November 30, 2016.
Among 68,946 participants, high organic food scores were inversely associated with the overall risk of cancer.
“Our results indicate that higher organic food consumption is associated with a reduction in the risk of overall cancer. We observed reduced risks for specific cancer sites (postmenopausal breast cancer, NHL, and all lymphomas) among individuals with a higher frequency of organic food consumption. Further prospective studies using accurate exposure data are necessary to confirm these results and should integrate a large number of individuals. If confirmed, our results appear to suggest that promoting organic food consumption in the general population could be a promising preventive strategy against cancer.”
