[ad_1]
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – People who consume more organic foods are less likely to develop cancer than those who have never eaten them, but also find it difficult to establish a causal link between foods reducing cancer risk and health, according to a recent study.
It is impossible to conclusively prove that this or that food reduces the risk of a complex disease such as cancer.
Researchers need to monitor the situation of a large number of people and wait for some of them to register cancer lesions, hoping to monitor the behavior of some patients who may be held responsible for injuries after being injured , according to the agency France-Presse.
How did the study take place?
There have been thousands of studies on nutrition and its role in various diseases over the last few decades, but even the most important of them is sometimes questioned, as was the case with Famous experience that showed the virtues of the Mediterranean diet in the fight against heart disease in 2013, but was removed from a medical journal this year. Due to problems in the approved methodology.
With regard to organic foods, a large-scale multicenter study on the effects of cancer, entitled "Million Walkmen Stadi", was conducted in 2006 among 600,000 Britons.
The study makes no difference between women who consume organic foods and those who do not consume them, in terms of overall cancer risk, but she notes that eating these foods reduces the risk of developing a specific cancerous disease as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
However, the recent French study, supervised by leading scientific institutions such as the University of Sorbonne, the National Institute of Agricultural Research and the National Institute of Health and Research Medical, was more detailed, although with fewer participants, 69,000 people, most of them women. The results of the study were published in the American magazine Gamma.
Artificial insecticides cause cancer
The hypothesis is that organic food consumers consume less synthetic pesticides in fruits, vegetables and cereals, which reduces their risk, given the role of certain insecticides in cancer.
After using them, volunteers completed a questionnaire containing information on income levels, physical movements, BMI and smoking, as well as on the amount of organic food consumed within 24 hours. preceding.
The study divided participants into four groups, based on their consumption of organic foods, after which the number of cancer cases in each group was calculated for a period of four and a half years on average.
In a quarter of respondents who reported consuming the largest quantities of organic food, the risk of cancer was 25% lower than the quarter, those who said they had never eaten organic food.
In absolute terms, the increase in risk is only 0.6%, which represents an additional 6 patients per 100,000 population.
It's a "complex" study
The study did not conclude that there is a significant statistical relationship between these two factors, except in cases of breast cancer in postmenopausal women and in the lymphoma domain, particularly non-Hodgkin's patients.
The authors of the study were keen to correct their results by taking into account that people who consume organic foods are generally richer and less obese and smoke less.
Other subtle factors associated with the environment or lifestyle, however, play a potential role in this direction.
This is a fundamental problem of such studies.
"People who openly consume organic foods are likely to differ from others in many other ways," said Nigel Brockton, director of research at the American Institute for Cancer Research.
It does not recommend a particular diet, but a whole range of practices aimed at reducing the risk of cancer, including maintaining a normal weight, exercising, eating a healthy diet and not eating too much. of red meat.
"The diet is complex," says Brockton. "We will never publish a recommendation based on a study, regardless of its statistical significance."
He also has problems
Other problems were also related to the non-measurement of the effects of pesticides among study participants, which provoked the Harvard University's expert reviews in the same number of the magazine Gamma.
Julia Bodry, one of the authors of the study, told AFP that these measurements had been taken from a small subsample of participants.
The researchers' confidence in the information presented by participants is another problem for Stanford University Professor of Medicine, John Johnides, who is known to have stated that most published studies were wrong.
"Most people, including myself, are not able to specifically disclose the amount of organic food they eat," he told AFP.
"The probability that this study will reach a significant percentage of 3%, with a probability of 97% that it promotes absurd and trivial results," he said.
However, "the field of research progresses with each new study"
As for red meat or cigarettes, several studies must be conducted in the same direction to draw conclusions about organic foods.
In the meantime, the AmericanCancer Society recommends eating fruits and vegetables, organic or not.
Source link
