7 votes

Association of frequency of organic food consumption with cancer risk - Findings from the NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort study

7 comments

  1. [5]
    Neverland
    Link
    Related NY Times article. I have personally moved to a country with few organic options, but I used to try to eat organic all the time. For any people that think organic food is a pointless...

    Related NY Times article.

    In a study, those who ate more organic produce, dairy, meat and other products had 25 percent fewer cancer diagnoses over all, especially lymphoma and breast cancer.

    I have personally moved to a country with few organic options, but I used to try to eat organic all the time.

    For any people that think organic food is a pointless expense, does this sway you at all? If not, why not?

    1 vote
    1. cfabbro
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I would never use the word "pointless" but organic food is still undeniably an additional expense which not everyone can afford nor, as you pointed out, everyone even has access to. Even in...

      I would never use the word "pointless" but organic food is still undeniably an additional expense which not everyone can afford nor, as you pointed out, everyone even has access to. Even in American where organic foods are generally the cheapest, according to Consumer Reports:

      We compared more than 100 product pairings in all. On average, organic foods were 47 percent more expensive, but the range was huge. In a couple of instances, the organic product was actually cheaper, by as much as 13 percent for honey at Amazon Fresh. In fact, depending on where we shopped, we found organic lettuce carrots, maple syrup, olive oil, and cream cheese for the same price or less than their conventional counterparts.

      At the other extreme, organic zucchini cost a whopping 303 percent more than nonorganic at Fresh Direct.

      When people are struggling to make ends meet already, that increase in the cost of their groceries can be hard to justify regardless of the potential health benefits. Benefits which aren't actually "proven" yet either, as even the study’s lead author noted in the very article you took your quote from:

      She noted the study does not prove an organic diet causes a reduction in cancers, but strongly suggests “that an organic-based diet could contribute to reducing cancer risk."

      And which certainly isn't helped by the seemingly valid criticism of the study either:

      Nutrition experts from Harvard who wrote a commentary accompanying the study expressed caution, however, criticizing the researchers’ failure to test pesticide residue levels in participants in order to validate exposure levels. They called for more long-term government-funded studies to confirm the results.

      And the fact that the last major study on organic food consumption contradicted some of the results of this one:

      The only other large study that has asked participants about organic food consumption with reference to cancer was a large British study from 2014. While it found a significantly lower risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma among women who said they usually or always ate organic food, it also found a higher rate of breast cancers in the organic consumers — and no overall reduction in cancer risk.

      And the problem with studies like this in general, which is that there are so many other factors besides organic vs non-organic diets which can lead to cancer which are difficult to factor in to the results:

      The authors of that study, known as the Million Women study, said at the time that wealthier, more educated women in the study, who were more likely to purchase organic food, also had risk factors that increase the likelihood of having breast cancer, such as having fewer children and higher alcohol consumption.

      6 votes
    2. [3]
      Rocket_Man
      Link Parent
      Not particularly, because it seems the results aren't very compelling. Always be weary of science articles from most news sources as their articles are often extremely poorly written. I think I've...

      For any people that think organic food is a pointless expense, does this sway you at all? If not, why not?

      Not particularly, because it seems the results aren't very compelling. Always be weary of science articles from most news sources as their articles are often extremely poorly written. I think I've only found neurologicablog, science-based medicine, scientific american, and a couple other select blogs that are anywhere near trustworthy.

      At this point I think the evidence clearly shows there's not much benefit to organic food. If anything it can actually be harmful as organic farming is less efficient, less evidence based, and not sustainable. But at least in some cases it's helped popularize meat and things from more ethical sources.

      3 votes
      1. [2]
        Neverland
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        I agree that getting science from most publications is problematic, that’s why the topic link is to the study. Here is a pretty thorough study about organic farming which does include that it...

        I agree that getting science from most publications is problematic, that’s why the topic link is to the study.

        Here is a pretty thorough study about organic farming which does include that it would require some more farm land, but that could be mitigated by lowering food waste.

        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5686079/

        I would also like to add that everyone should be aware of the fact that there is little-to-no intellectual property on the organic side, so there is a very large anti-organic PR campaign funded by the vested interests who stand to lose billions in sales as organic gains market share.

        However, as with everything, I am not religious about it. I think there is food that is much more important to eat organic than others.

        Edit: and the other thing about protecting your IP is that you can fund studies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_funding_of_academic_research

        I’m not saying that this proves this particular organic study more valid or anything, but I always try to keep this in mind when thinking about markets where there is a giant gorilla in the space.

        3 votes
        1. Rocket_Man
          Link Parent
          I don't quite understand why we would want to switch to organic food. It artificially restricts the use of GMO's, opts for potentially more dangerous "natural" pesticides, and uses more...

          I don't quite understand why we would want to switch to organic food. It artificially restricts the use of GMO's, opts for potentially more dangerous "natural" pesticides, and uses more land/energy. Also I don't think intellectual property is actually a significant agricultural issue. A farmer using better sustainable products can still choose to use lisenced crops or not. Although many choose to use them because they are intentionally better in many ways.

          This isn't to say current farming practices are ideal however. We should strive for sustainable farming systems that minimize pesticide use, embrace GMOs, and maintain biodiverse crops along with probably other good evidence based practices.

          5 votes
  2. joelthelion
    Link
    The study and the statistics look solid. It would be good to see it replicated.

    The study and the statistics look solid. It would be good to see it replicated.

    1 vote
  3. patience_limited
    Link
    So I'll brush the dust off the old epidemiology, toxicology, and biostatistics work to comment. There's a prior question about "why or why not consume organic foods", and my personal answer...

    So I'll brush the dust off the old epidemiology, toxicology, and biostatistics work to comment.

    There's a prior question about "why or why not consume organic foods", and my personal answer reflects some the potential confounders in the study. I have a known family history of cancer that drives mitigation efforts, relevant education, adequate income to consume organic foods by choice, the luxury of cooking skills, and location in a place where fresh, organically-produced foods are readily available. The resultant likelihood of a low-processed, high-organic diet is even greater than the sum of those parts - it's ridiculously easy for me. All of that comes with other health-related factors (not working in an industry with high-risk occupational chemical exposures like agriculture or manufacturing; living away from both urban and agricultural toxin exposures; freedom to exercise; choosing a mostly plant-based diet, etc.). The study tries to account for as many of these variables as possible, but they're often tightly connected in ways it's difficult to correct for.

    High/low socioeconomic status doesn't imply the same clusters of correlated factors in every nation, either; French poverty may include a better diet, but more smoking, than British, and so on. The differences in the U.K. and French study results could be explained on the basis of organic food availability and labeling standards alone; are "high-organic" consumers in Britain getting food of equal quality to French consumers?

    The Harvard criticism about failure to test pesticide levels is partially invalidated by the reported urine dialkylphosphate (organophosphate pesticide metabolite) measurements. Blood levels are harder to collect, more difficult to analyze accurately, and more transient. Urinary excretion reflects cumulative exposure over a 12- to 48-hour period, and is probably the best available surrogate measure for dietary pesticide consumption, short of analyzing every ingested item.

    There is an available criticism that the study didn't effectively distinguish between benefits of pesticide avoidance and consuming foods produced by fully organic farming. There's some evidence that radioactive phosphorus introduced from mined mineral phosphate fertilizers contributes to commercial farming risks.

    To my eye, the most significant finding in this study is a demonstrable dose-response pattern. Likelihood of cancer has a linear relationship with measured and reported pesticide exposure in diet. Even if this relationship only accounts for 25% of the observed cancer incidence, that's a huge number of preventable sicknesses and deaths. The economics of treatment cost and lost productivity for cancer are sufficient to justify pesticide bans, if not a complete switch to organic production.

    Finally, though cancer is a dramatic and highly diagnosable disease outcome, on a toxicological basis, every extra cancer case usually reflects 10 - 20 other excess instances of diminished health - kidney, thyroid or heart disease, neurological disorders, immunocompromise, fetal injury, etc. This study didn't attempt to measure relative disease burden among the populations. Cancer is rare, and overall disease burden across many illnesses is difficult to measure - an excess of asthma or heart disease can be hard to spot among millions of cases. But that's why excess cancer is a sentinel public health measurement - control the excess cancer risk, and you also decrease all the other related disease risks.

    1 vote