Preventive Medicine: Does the Consumption of Organic Products Prevent Cancer?

For years I have been writing – more recently in a dedicated entry in The Truth About Food – despite my general enthusiasm for organic products. food, and the benefits of organic farming for the environment, direct evidence of the benefits of organic food for human health is very rare and quite elusive. This is still the case this week, but with a remarkable additive. A study recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine badociates current consumption of organic foods with a reduced risk of cancer.

French researchers have followed nearly 70,000 people for 10 years, which gives this study a great statistical power. They evaluated the frequency of consumption of various foods available in organic and conventional versions, creating a 32-point scale. They found significantly lower overall cancer rates – a relative reduction of 25% on average – among those with the highest rates compared to those with the lowest frequency of ingesting organic foods. .

This new study, however, was not a randomized trial. . It is rather an observational cohort study called NutriNet-Health. Study participants share online information on a wide range of habits and lifestyles, as well as on health outcomes. Researchers badyze badociations.

Association studies can not prove the cause and effect for reasons as obvious as the spread in school courses: two things can be "true, true but unrelated" . Those who consume organic foods consciously and most often can simply systematically differ from those more cavalier about it. Perhaps they are more cautious about everything, more devoted to health, more attentive.

NutriNet-Santé researchers were able to capture many other variables that could "explain" the badociation between organic foods and cancer risk. They collected data on the habits and quality of food, smoking, exercise, environmental exposures, education, and so on. But this diligent effort can not completely eliminate the possibility that eating organic foods and less cancer is nonetheless "true, true and unrelated", a concession that researchers make clear and humble.

Of course, a study on a subject of such great interest. has engendered many reactions in the media, inevitably hyperbolic in both directions. Some titles have made the leap in favor of cause and effect, offering organic foods as a recognized opportunity to reduce the risk of cancer. Detractors were quick to jump and note that since the new study proved nothing, nothing like that is true.

I do not care about hyperbole in one way or the other, but unlawful dismissal of my problems poses a particular problem for me. this research in some neighborhoods. First of all, let's be clear: some of the interests of the food industry would simply prefer that the many chemical alterations in our food supply not be found guilty of crimes they may well commit. If the denunciations of the new study come from such sources, we can not trust them.

On the other hand, research methods are systematically criticized by entities that do not like the results – yet, the same methods are disseminated as follows: Gospel when these same entities like the results. All parties in the "regime wars" use this tactic and I renounce it in any case. The strengths and limitations of the given methods are what they are, regardless of the results and regardless of whether we like them or not.

For yet another, there is the insinuation that a study of mere badociation does not prove cause and effect, so cause-and-effect have been … refuted. This, of course, is total nonsense. As the French authors correctly point out, their study suggests an badociation that deserves to be deepened. But in the meantime, their study suggests badociation. The group of people who consumed organic products more often had less cancer. This desirable result is attributable to something. The impossibility of reaching the threshold of definitive proof is not the same as that of not providing support. The new study supports the plausible and optimistic proposition that consuming organic products could reduce the risk of cancer over the course of life.

No, the new study does not prove that consuming organic products will reduce your risk of cancer. But in the context of meaning as well as science, it gives hope. As there are many other good reasons to promote organic foods, I encourage you to do so whenever you can reasonably. David L. Katz Author, The Truth About Foods.