People who opt for organic aren’t eating pesticides and contaminants that are found on non-organic foods, and that could be the difference when it comes to cancer, say researchers from the Institute of Health and Medical Research in France.
In fact, eating organic was even more important than the quality of food, so people eating organic ready-to-eat meals were also less likely to develop cancer than those who rarely if ever chose organic.
The researchers listed 16 organic products – including fruits and vegetables, meat and fish, ready-to-eat meals, vegetable oils and dietary supplements – and tracked how often a group of 68,946 adults ate them. In the average 54 months the volunteers were tracked, 1,340 cases of cancer were recorded, the most prevalent being breast cancer, with 459 cases diagnosed, prostate cancer (180), skin cancer (135) colorectal cancer (99) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (47).
But those who ate the most organic produce were the least likely to have developed cancer. The overall protective effect of organic food was 25 per cent for all cancers, and specifically 73 per cent for non-Hodgkin lymphoma and 21 per cent for post-menopausal breast cancer.
(Source: JAMA Internal Medicine, 2018; doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.4357)
