Organic food: Pricey, not particularly healthy, won't save you from cancer

The Register ^ | 4/4/2014 | Dr Pan Pantziarka

[markomalley]

Comment One of the primary drivers of the growth in organic food sales over the last couple of decades is the perception that organic food is healthier than conventionally farmed food.

It stands to reason, doesn’t it? After all conventional crops depend on chemicals and organic food doesn't.

And we all know that chemicals, in this case mainly pesticides, are bad for you. Ergo organic food should be healthier, and the strong growth in organic food sales (up 2.8 per cent last year, after a few years of downturn during the recession) attests to how popular opinion has accepted this assertion.

This is why the results of a new UK study that looked at cancer risk and the consumption of organic food is so damned inconvenient. Where organic food advocates have pushed organics as a way of reducing cancer risk, the study shows that it makes little difference one way or another. Hence uncomfortable headlines from the likes of the Daily Mail: Eating organic foods does NOTHING to reduce the cancer risk among women, says new study.

6,000 eaters probed

The study in question appears in the latest edition of the British Journal of Cancer and is by Oxford University cancer epidemiology boffin Dr Kathryn Bradbury and co-workers. Part of the Million Women Study funded by Cancer Research UK and the Medical Research Council, this particular bit of research tracked 623,080 middle-aged British women for almost 10 years and looked at their pattern of organic food consumption and the incidence of 16 different cancer types, as well as overall cancer incidence.

Based on their reported eating habits the women were put into three groups: never, sometimes, or usually/always eating organic food. The headline result showed that eating organic food was not associated with overall cancer incidence one way or another (in fact there was a tiny increased overall risk of about 3 per cent, but it’s the sort of noisy result one can ignore). Look at the specific cancer types and the results are mixed, with some showing increased or decreased risks, but again nothing to be alarmed (or pleased) about.

Of course this has upset some, especially the British Soil Association, the guardian of all things organic in the UK (including being the premier organic certification body in the country).

According to Peter Melchett (aka Lord Melchett or the 4th Baron Melchett, ex-Greenpeace head honcho and now Policy Director at the Soil Association) the study is flawed because certain confounding variables weren’t addressed and because, according to him, the authors don’t understand what pesticides are found in food or how they get into food.

However, he was quick to pick out one of the results for particular attention – the numbers show that there is an apparent 21 per cent decrease in non-Hodgkins lymphoma risk among the women who reported "usually or always" eating organic food.

However, there were other numbers that were not picked out by the Soil Association, the most alarming of which was the apparent 9 per cent increase in the risk of breast cancer. This was a result that the study authors subjected to a series of additional tests and the results still stood. More alarming still was the 37 per cent increase in the risk of developing a soft tissue sarcoma, a form of cancer which is rare and hard to treat. Why no mention of those figures at the Soil Association?

It's all relative

Of course the fact is that all of these figures are dealing with relative risk, which is standard practice in epidemiological studies. To get some perspective, the chances of getting non-Hodgkins lymphoma is about 2.1 per cent, so if the results of this study hold true, then sticking to an always organic diet will reduce that to 1.66 per cent.

The figures for breast cancer are around 12.3 per cent life-time risk, and this will be increased to 13.4 per cent if you go the all organic route. And if you really want to trade punches with the proponents of organic, you can point out that a high-organic diet will lead to more cancers as the incidence of breast cancer is much higher than the incidence of non-Hodgkins.

However, it’s unlikely that this finding is going to do much to dissuade the faithful that the benefits of organics have been over-sold. After all, this is not the first negative study when it comes to organics and health. A systematic review published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2012 found that: "The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods".

There were differences reported to do with pesticide residues but nothing to cause alarm. In terms of nutrient content, there was one statistically significant nutrient where organics outdid conventional produce: phosphorous. Now, if you’re starving, then eating organic is the better choice, but if you’re not, then increased phosphorous is pretty much irrelevant as it’s abundant in the diet no matter where it comes from.

Of course it’s the pesticide residues that ultimately drive the idea that organics are better for us. This ignores the fact that even organic food uses pesticides, for example rotenone and pyrethrin, some of which are considered carcinogenic or otherwise hazardous to health.

And, just to throw in some numbers, a study by the United States Department of Agriculture in 2012 found that 4 per cent of organic food samples had pesticide residues above the 5 per cent EPA limit, which technically meant they would have failed the organic certification they carried.

But leaving that aside, the chemophobia of much of the population is stoked by the use of in vitro studies which show that certain pesticides are carcinogenic. However, there is a huge difference between the inside of a petri dish and the inside of a human.

Pesticides are amongst the most heavily regulated chemical agents in the world, and if there was a link to cancer incidence then we would expect to see it in studies such as this one, and in studies that looked at farm workers and others who have greater exposure to pesticides.

One recently published paper looked at the incidence of cancer in agricultural workers in France during the period 2005 – 2009 (the AGRICAN study). It reported that overall agricultural workers were healthier than the general population, with reduced cancer incidence compared to the general population in the same areas. So where are the bodies (so to speak)?

There are, of course, problems with this new study in the UK. For one there was no stratification by type of organic diet – so, for example, we don’t know whether the lymphoma result was skewed by an excess of vegans or carnivores.

And the categories of "never", "sometimes" and "usually/always" are by necessity coarse and difficult to quantify – for example how can you tell how much non-organic food the "usually" group eats?

But for all that, this is study with a large sample size and if there was a positive signal that eating organic protects against cancer you’d expect to see it.

The upshot? It’s probably true to say that spending the pennies (or pounds) you save by eating non-organic on eating MORE fruit and veg is a healthier bet than forking out the extra for "organics". ®

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Ditto on the salt pork and mashed potatoes.

[Rockingham]

I once believed as you do, but about five years ago, a friend suggested that I look at the medical literature. A few weeks later, with some free time at a university library, I went to the medical treatises and the medical journal databases and read extensively on the subject. Contrary to my initial opinion, after followup reading, I gradually became convinced that there was good cause for avoiding BPA and other POPs.

About once a year, I take another look in detail at the issue. Nothing that I have seen so far has allayed my concerns. Am I correct? Or, more to the point, are the doctors and scientists who have raised the alarm well-founded in their concerns? My impression is that the evidence against BPA and other POPs is accumulating, much as the evidence did against cigarettes, lead in gasoline, and against other chemical pollutants.

For me at least, the balance has tipped in favor of caution even at the price of minor inconveniences. You may conclude otherwise, but take a look at the medical evidence. Simply reading the medical journal abstracts in the Pubmed database should be enough to persuade you that, at the very least, the issue is open to debate.

[Mase]

Instead of looking through abstracts in PubMed, you should look at the molecular diagrams of the typical structures of estrogen and BPA. As I said before, the structures of these two compounds look nothing alike, no matter how you view them.

The same abstracts that cry alarm over alleged estrogen dependent effects want you to believe that many other POP's are also very dangerous in minuscule amounts. These analyses are promoted as scientific, but they are really designed to sell books, promote an agenda, or make grant money flow.

What was that quote again about keeping the public alarmed and clamoring to be led to safety?

[Mase]

Eating fat does not make you fat, eating sugar and starch does.

So if I consume 3,000 calories a day entirely from fat, and only expend 1,500 calories a day via metabolic processes and physical activity, I won't gain weight? And, if I eat 1,500 calories a day from only sugar and starch, but burn off 3,000 calories a day, I won't lose weight because all calories consumed came from carbs? Is that what you're claiming?

That's what it sounds like. If so, you need to rethink what you've written.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

It takes quite a while to process the fat into calories, some of it might pass right through.

The sugar is instantly converted to calories...or stored as fat.

[crazycatlady]

Thanks.

[Rockingham]

I have read not just the abstracts, but dozens of pertinent medical studies and review articles, usually from leading medical journals. The lack of similarity of BPA and estrogen in chemical structure is not conclusive or even persuasive as negative evidence, and there are multiple strands of medical evidence that incriminate POPs as having adverse effects on human health.

Your suggestion that this evidence is the result of comprehensive, systematic fraud is not tenable. I recommend you go to a medical library for a few hours and read the treatises and journal articles. You need not agree with them, but at least you will have engaged the evidence.

[Mase]

When you consume carbohydrates, what's needed for immediate energy is taken and the rest is converted to glycogen, which is stored in the liver and muscles. If the glycogen reserves are full, it will be converted to depot fat.

People get fat from consuming more energy than they burn. It has nothing to do with any one particular macronutrient. It isn't as complicated as some try to make it. Calories in vs. calories out. That's it.

[Mase]

Keeping current on the pertinent research was a vital part of my job for a long time, and I can assure you that a great deal of research today is done to sell books, generate lecture fees, pursue an agenda, or make the grant money flow, rather than finding the truth. If you're a professor, grant money can make the difference between a struggling and living large. The latter lifestyle motivates good people to do things they shouldn't do, and wouldn't do otherwise. Your tax dollars at work.

Anyone not realizing that research and the peer review process has been seriously corrupted, isn't paying attention.

[Rockingham]

Evidence commonly varies in quality, and there are few instances in which even expert publications are utterly devoid of self interest, bias, and error. Of course, these defects apply not just to evidence on the side one dislikes, but also to the side that one prefers. Even if, as Samuel Johnson famously pointed out, no one but a blockhead writes for any reason except money, in the end, there is no substitute for studying the evidence, good and bad, favorable and unfavorable.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Really!

Then why do the low-carb diets work?

[saleman]

“But yeah, I’d take crops that are correctly fertilized with manure over Roundup-soaked vegetables any day of the week.”

Are you sure you know what Round up is used for. Cause it sure doesn't sound like it.

Once again, bloviating and hysteria triumph over facts. But hey, it's a free country. You go right ahead.

[Mase]

Yeah, really -- unless you've repealed the first law of thermodynamics. Your suggestions are in total denial of the thermodynamic perspective. I think I'll stick with established science.

People lose weight because they burn more calories than they consume. It has always been this way. I suspect that the low carb diet is, for the most part, a low calorie diet.

Michael Phelps would devour 12,000 calories a day, mostly from carbs, when he was in training. According to you, he's an obese slob.

[Little Bill]

One of the things that give Chowder its flavor is the salt pork.

I make Corn Chowder much the same way except I use 3 cans of cream corn, I know how to cream corn but with two feet of snow in my front how am I going to get fresh corn, and then add 2 pounds of frozen corn.

I make it thinner than Clam Chowder but still served with oyster crackers and black pepper as God intended it to be.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Your suggestions are in total denial of the thermodynamic perspective. I think I'll stick with established science.

Not exactly, the fat doesn't create an instant insulin reaction the second your tongue tastes it... but sugar/starch does. So do artificial sweeteners, because the body thinks it's sugar.

People lose weight because they burn more calories than they consume. It has always been this way. I suspect that the low carb diet is, for the most part, a low calorie diet.

No, it isn't.

But because most readily available food is loaded with flour or sugar, or both, and that's what most people eat. They get up, have some cereal or toast, coffee with cream and sugar, on the way to work, pick up another sugar loaded coffee and a donut or bagel, and that holds them till coffee break where they eat some cinnamon rolls with their next sugar laden coffee.

Then they have pizza and chips for lunch with a large Pepsi. Grab a couple of beers on the way home from work and then have a huge dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, and garlic bread.

Unless they are an athlete, they can't possibly burn all of it off.

On the cave-man, or God diet, you cut out all man made carbohydrate based "foods" and just stick to meat, seafood, butter and vegetables, shunning starchy vegetables and fruits. Nothing out of a box or bag.

You can have all the fat you want....Although I doubt you'd be likely to eat enough fat to equal all the calories I described above.

The "junk food" industry is based on products that are cheap to make, easy to consume, and quick to digest, which leave you hungry sooner, also when you add the sugar/carb crash to the equation, people are literally addicted to their eating habits.

[Black Agnes]

Isocaloric != isometabolic. Your metabolism != laboratory calorimeter.

Technically, laboratory calorimeters can determine the caloric content of wood fiber. In your body that’s pretty close to zero. Unless you’re a flagellate in the intestine of a termite. Not so in a lab experiment, by the strict definition calorie.

[Toddsterpatriot]

People lose weight because they burn more calories than they consume. It has always been this way. I suspect that the low carb diet is, for the most part, a low calorie diet.

No, it isn't.

When I tried Atkins, it was a low calorie diet.

I ate protein and fat, and didn't feel hungry. No snacking all day.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Well...didn’t the protein and fat contain calories?

Were you limited in how much fat to eat?

[Toddsterpatriot]

Well...didn’t the protein and fat contain calories?

Why yes they did. 4 calories/gram of protein, 9 calories/gram of fat.

Were you limited in how much fat to eat?

No. But I never felt hungry, so I ate less.

[Mase]

Your suggestions are in total denial of the thermodynamic perspective

Not exactly, the fat doesn't create an instant insulin reaction...

So what? What does this have to do with the first law of thermodynamics?

...but sugar/starch does

Well of course it does. Insulin facilitates the metabolization of carbohydrates. Again, so what?

So do artificial sweeteners, because the body thinks it's sugar.

If the artificial sweetener doesn't provide any calories, why would there be an insulin response? Your body knows when it's getting carbs and when it isn't. This is nonsense.

Do you really believe that insulin being released is responsible for people becoming fat? Good grief.

The rest of your post simply describes what I've been trying to tell you. People who eat more calories than they burn are going to gain weight. Overeating is a learned behavior, and there is a lot of it going on these days. Combine the over consumption of calories with a sedentary lifestyle, and you end up with an overweight population. Nothing earth shattering there.

There is no God diet. Cave men didn't live very long for a lot of reasons, and their diet played a role. If you consume more calories from fat than you burn, you will get fat(ter). If you consume more calories from protein than you burn, you will get fat(ter). If you consume more calories from carbohydrates than you burn, you will get fat(ter). Same as it ever was.