Study finds organic food consumption reduces cancer risk by 25%

[ad_1]

organic food cancer

Before industrialization, cancer was rare in human history. Lifestyle changes as a result of this revolution in the history of humanity have included a longer lifespan (over 30 years) and exposure to toxic pollutants. According to Forbes:

Bioarchaeologists do not routinely see cancer in old skeletal remains, partly because the life span was very short in the past and partly because of the widespread lack of carcinogens in the environment in the world. Antiquity. ¹

The growth of agriculture corresponded to the growth of industrialization. In fact, the increase in agricultural productivity, as during the British agricultural revolution, is closely linked to the population growth and migration that allowed the industrial revolution. As small farms were bought by lords, small farmers moved to cities in search of work. ²³

History of Chemical Agriculture

Industrialization finally brought industrial farming with herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertilizers, replacing crop rotation and cover crop fixing nitrogen. DDT was first synthesized in 1873, but its insecticidal properties were not discovered until 1945.

Lead arsenate was one of the most popular and widely used pesticides in the United States from the late 1890s to the 1950s. By 1908, resistance to gypsy moth was already reported in the United States. Arsenate of lead.

In 1906, the Clean Food and Drugs Act was passed largely following Upton Sinclair's book The jungle. In 1910, we have our first law on pesticides, but it only regulates labeling and not safety.

The increase in chemical production and its increased use are related to world wars. Consider these two facts of The story of the chemical war against food of Big Chemical, 1865-2007:

1918: I. G. Farben, the German chemicals cartel, trains and understands Bayer, BASF and Hoechst. I. G. Farben will build chemical factories next to the concentration camps during the Second World War, in support of the Third Reich.

1941: In the United States, agriculture becomes more and more industrialized. It uses chemicals, mechanization and monoculture to increase production and feed war-torn Europe (1941-1950). ⁴

At the beginning of the 21st century, 85% of the food in the United States contains pesticides and genetically modified crops are abundant.

The direct increase in cancer rates and chemicals in food production is hard to ignore. Although survival rates for some forms of cancer have increased, the risk of diagnosis has also increased.

organic food cancer

In fact, Cancer Research UK reports "our chances of developing the disease at one in two". ⁵

Researchers British Journal of Cancer found in 2015:

The lifetime risk of cancer increased from 38.5% for men born in 1930 to 53.5% for men born in 1960. For women, it increased from 36.7% to 47.5%. . The results are robust for different models of cancer rate projections …

The lifetime risk of cancer for people born since 1960 is more than 50%. More than half of adults under 65 currently will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives.⁶

One way to reduce this risk is to eat organic foods.

New study: organic foods could reduce cancer risk

A study published on October 22 2018, in the peer-review The newspaper of the American Medical Association look at him "Association of frequency of consumption of organic foods with the risk of cancer ". The researchers followed 68,946 French adults in a longitudinal study. Most of the participants were women and were on average 44 years old. The diet of the participants was evaluated in 2009 and 2016 in the cohort study.

At the time of follow-up, 1,340 participants reported cases of cancer for the first time, with breast cancer being the most prevalent. The researchers found that "high scores of organic foods were inversely associated with overall cancer risk."

Conclusions and relevance A higher frequency of organic food consumption was associated with a reduced risk of cancer. Although the results of the study should be confirmed, promoting the consumption of organic foods in the general population could be a promising prevention strategy against cancer.⁷

The results of the study were exciting and promising, but given the nature of a cohort study, other variables were not taken into account. CNN reports that "Those who ate the most organic foods were 25% less likely to develop cancer." ⁸

This study gives a new credibility to the phrase "Do not panic, it's organic!" Although this study needs to be confirmed by further research, it proves what consumers of organic foods intuitively know. Decreasing exposure to contaminants logically reduces the risk of cancer.

organic food cancer