"Are Organic Foods Healthier?"
The medical literature has been historically hostile to organic foods,
blaming in part erroneous information supplied by the "health food" movement
for our ignorance of nutrition.
But until a few generations ago all food was organic,
so it's kind of ironic that what we now call conventional food
really isn't very conventional for our species.
By eating organic we can reduce our exposure to pesticides,
but it remains unclear whether
such a reduction in exposure is clinically relevant.
I talked about some of the test tube studies
comparing health-related properties
of organic versus conventional foods:
higher antioxidative and antimutagenic activity
as well as better inhibition of cancer cell proliferation.
But in terms of studies on actual people
rather than Petri dishes there isn't much out there.
Why can't you just compare the health of those
that buy organic to those that don't?
Organic consumers do report
being significantly healthier than conventional consumers,
but organic consumers also tend to eat more plant foods in general,
and less soda and alcohol, processed meat or milk,
and just eat healthier in general. So no wonder they feel so much better.
Therefore there's an urgent need for interventional trials,
or studies following cohorts of people eating organic over time, like this one:
The Million Women Study in the UK -- the first to examine the association
between the consumption of organic food and subsequent risk of cancer.
The only significant risk reduction they found though was for
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
This is consistent with data showing a high risk
of developing lymphoma in those who have
higher levels of pesticides stored in their butt fat,
which they only looked at because studies
on farm workers found high rates of lymphoma.
Parental farm worker exposures also associated
with a birth defect of the penis called hypospadias.
And so researchers decided to see if moms,
who failed to choose organic, were at increased risk.
And indeed, they found that frequent consumption
of conventional, high fat dairy products was associated
with about double the odds of the birth defect.
Now this could just be because those that choose organic
have other healthy related behaviors,
or it could be that high fat foods, like dairy products,
bioamplify the fat-soluable toxicants in our environment.
There are two other general population studies that have raised concerns.
One found about a 50 to 70% increase in the odds of ADHD
among children with pesticide levels in their urine
common among US children.
And another, they found triple the odds of testicular cancer among men
with higher levels of organochlorine pesticides in their blood,
90% of which comes from meat, fish, and dairy,
which may help explain rising testicular cancer rates
in many Western countries since World War II.
What about interventional trials?
All we have in the medical literature so far are studies like this,
showing organically grown food provides health benefits to fruit flies.
Raised on diets of conventional versus organic produce,
then subjected to a variety of tests designed to assess overall fly health.
And what do you know?
Flies raised on diets made from organically grown produce lived longer.
Hmm. Insects eating insecticides don't do as well.
Not exactly much of a breakthrough.