Food from organic agriculture contain little pesticide residue. What influence this has on the risk of cancer, has been investigated. A large-scale study in France shows that Bio could have great Potential.
“Incredibly important,” announced Harvard Professor Jorge E. Chavarro, a new study from Paris, which was published in the journal Jama Internal Medicine. It examines the connection between organic food and the risk for various types of cancer. The result: participants who ate more products from organic agriculture, diseased years later, a rare cancer.
Julia Baudry and her Team of French scientists, based on the since 2009, collected data from approximately 69,000 French. More than three-quarters of the subjects were female and older than 40 years. The participants completed, among other things, an extensive questionnaire on their consumption of organic food, which were divided into 16 product categories, including vegetables and fruit, but also unhealthy organic goods, such as ready meals and sweets. The subjects reported how often they consumed what are the ecological products.
A 25 percent lower cancer rate
From the data, the researchers calculated, for each of the subjects, a Food-Score – the higher, the more Bio on the dining plan. In the course of the next four and a half years of 1,340 of the subjects affected, a total of cancer. The district with the highest Food Score had a rate 25 percent lower cancer than the quarter with the lowest value.
The largest positive effect, the researchers for two specific types of cancer: Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and post-menopausal breast cancer observed. For these breast cancer could be detected in the study, for the first time, that the consumption of organic products has a positive effect. The Million Women Study in the University of Oxford had expressed doubts as to this effect in 2014. At that time, the researchers had found only in relation to Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the risk can be reduced.
Researchers see promising preventive strategy
These malignant lymphomas have become in the last few decades, more and more often – as a possible cause of environmental impacts are discussed. The International Agency for research on cancer (IARC) classifies certain pesticides as carcinogens. Because organically produced foods are significantly less with pollutant residues as the conventional, could impact the consumer positively.
The study from France concludes, therefore, that a General recommendation for the consumption of organic food could be a promising preventive strategy against cancer. However, further studies are still necessary to confirm the results.
Organic consumer is difficult to determine clearly
Because there are some weaknesses of the study, the grant to the scientists themselves. For one, it was the subjects are Volunteers who had with great probability been a strong sense of health consciousness. Most of them were educated women, which constitute, therefore, a representative cross-section of society. In addition, the calculated Food Score is not recorded the exact amount of organic food that had been eaten.
Nutrition experts such as Harvard Professor Jorge E. Chavarro, who were not involved in the study, and praise in a comment, although the large number of participants in the study. But you have to bear in mind that the consumption of organic food is difficult to ascertain clearly, and in this case, the private information of the subjects is based. Emphasize On the current research status of the connection between the consumption of organic foods and the risk of cancer is still unclear.
The price is for many consumers a hurdle
Future studies should, however, give similar results, is required as an urgent measure to lower the price of the expensive organic products, which constituted for many consumers is a hurdle, and to make them all equally accessible. Until then, the scientists advise to consume out of concern for pesticide pollution less fruit and vegetables from conventional agriculture. Because the current recommendation, in order to reduce the risk of cancer, see, above all, a healthy, well-balanced diet, whether organic or not organic.
Type of lymphoma: Non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas (NHL)
This type includes a variety of different malignant tumors that can form both within and outside of the lymphatic system. Decisive for the type and intensity of therapy, especially of the degree of malignancy (malignancy grade). One distinguishes between low malignant and highly malignant NHL-forms. About two-thirds of the findings among the low-grade malignant forms. You can insist on for years, without harming the patient too heavily, grow slowly and stay longer on a smaller area is limited. Nearly a third of all Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is very aggressive: This highly malignant type grows quickly and spreads early on, over wide areas of the body. If left untreated, it usually runs within a few months, deadly, the therapy at an early stage, but even here the forecasts are very favorable.
Approximately 6,400 men and 6300 women are diagnosed every year in the NHL. In the last decades, the number of new has increased, why is still unclear. A possible explanation is that the improvement in the same period, the study methods significantly, there is a statistical increase can be simply attributed to the earlier diagnosis. The average age of the Diseased is in men and 67 in women 70 years – this cancer occurs thus, unlike Hodgkin’s lymphoma that usually occurs in older patients.