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

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.

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?

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". ®

Michael Phelps, Michael Phelps, Michael Phelps!

What does he have to do with anything normal? Nobody burns that kind of calories, but some people can eat that much...it’s not hard to do when you eat mostly starch and sugar.

You can’t answer my question because there is no nutritional value to sugar and starch for the average sedentary adult.

Here’s another question for you. How many miles a day would your average 170 lb man have to run in order to burn 12,000 calories?

And when you’re done with that, maybe you can explain the diabetes epidemic.

You are just about to learn an important lesson, grasshopper, but you're fumbling at the one-yard-line. You appear to grasp the fact that people who live active lives and get lots of exercise are much less likely to become overweight than those who eat nothing but fast food and lead a sedentary lifestyle.

Why you can't just accept that and move on remains a mystery. People are responsible for themselves. You may not like that fact, but it is true. If someone chooses to consume more energy than they burn, and get fat in the process, then it is no ones fault but their own. It doesn't matter if the calories come from carbohydrates (starch and sugar as you refer to it), fat or protein. Too much food and not enough exercise will create fat people.

By the way, once you finally get around to learning something about human nutrition, you will no longer make silly claims like carbohydrates offer no nutritional value.

Just a few generations ago, the average American derived around 60% of their total daily calories from carbohydrates, the majority of which came from a highly processed and high GI product known as wheat flour. Even though the average American got 60 freaking percent of their calories from carbohydrates (highly refined!), obesity and diabetes were rare. The reason is because, back then, people worked liked hell and didn't sit at a desk or in front of a television/computer screen most of the day. The agrarian life was tough, physically, but you rarely saw an obese person, who wasn't a boozer, and diabetes wasn't an issue.

Same in countries like Japan. The average Japanese person back then existed on huge amounts of carbohydrates and consumption of high quality protein (meat and fish) was rare. But no one was obese and obesity related disease was hardly ever seen. It wasn't until the sedentary lifestyle and a diet higher in fat and protein caught up with their culture that we began seeing obesity, and the many metabolic disorders that result from obesity.

It has always been about calories in vs. calories out. Demonizing one macronutrient over another is for people who are looking for something to blame for their fatness, or are trying to sell a book or new diet fad. These are not serious people and you should try not being one of them.

Nothing has changed in our genetics in just a few generations so the answers to your many questions are very simple. You can choose to accept the truth or not; I really don't care. You could do yourself a lot of good, however, if you are truly interested in the subject, by purchasing and reading a good book about human nutrition.

Here endeth the lesson, grasshopper.

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