People who buy organic food are usually convinced it is better for their health, and they are willing to pay for it. But evidence of the benefits of eating organic has been lacking, until now. A French study that followed 70,000 adults, most of them women, for five years reported that the most frequent consumers of organic food had 25 percent fewer cancers overall than those who never ate organic. Those who ate the most organic fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meat and other foods had a particularly steep drop in the incidence of lymphomas, and a significant reduction in postmenopausal breast cancers, said the study, which was published in JAMA. The magnitude of protection surprised the researchers. “We did expect to find a reduction, but the extent of the reduction is quite important,” said Julia Baudry, the study’s lead author and a researcher with the Center of Research in Epidemiology and Statistics at the Sorbonne in Paris. She noted that 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.” Nutrition experts from Harvard University who wrote an accompanying commentary expressed caution, however, criticizing the researchers’ failure to test pesticide residue levels in participants in order to validate exposure levels. But they called for government bodies like the National Institutes of Health to fund research to evaluate the effects of an organic diet, saying there is “strong enough scientific rationale, and a high need… [Read full story]
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