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In a new study, those who ate more organic food had fewer cancer diagnoses
- tedunangst 8y agoWas it a double blind study?
- physicsyogi 8y agoThe paper's abstract suggests it was not: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2707948 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... >> Design, Setting, and Participants In this population-based prospective cohort study among French adult volunteers, data were included from participants with available information on organic food consumption frequency and dietary intake. For 16 products, participants reported their consumption frequency of labeled organic foods (never, occasionally, or most of the time).
- pmiller2 8y agoHow exactly would you ethically conduct a double blind nutrition study that looks at cancer diagnoses in humans?
- stevew20 8y agoBy making up the data
- scott_s 8y agoI don't think that's uncommon. You have something which you think reduces problem X, and you give it to half of your population, and a placebo to the other half. Over a long period of time, you observe the rate of problem X across both populations. I believe we have done this with many different kinds of problems, including cancer, heart disease, arthritis, etc.
- pmiller2 8y agoIf it’s not uncommon, then it should be easy for you to cite one.
- Confiks 8y agoYour reply is unnecessarily combative and short. Assume good faith in grandparent's reply, and preferably try to find out yourself and report back your findings. Meanwhile, have a bit to read on the ethics of placebo-controlled clinical trials (which is what is meant with "double blind" study here): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3844122 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3844122
- pmiller2 8y agoI am familiar with the ethics of double blind studies involving human subjects, but thank you for the pointer. I am not aware of any involving broad nutritional interventions in cancer outcomes. BTW, when were you appointed moderator? Or do you just enjoy lecturing people on posting etiquette?
- tomhoward 8y agoYour question implies you believe that a placebo-controlled trial is the only kind of medical study that carries any weight. This is not true. It's only one kind of study. In this case, the study was looking for a correlation between diet and cancer diagnoses. All it needs to be valid is to conform to the scientific method. Placebo-controlled therapeutic trials are not the only kinds of studies that conform to the scientific method, and indeed not all of them do. Please try to avoid reflexively invoking this trope to unfairly dismiss potentially interesting studies.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- open-source-ux 8y agoHere's a review of the same study from the NHS: "Despite the encouraging media reports, this study does not prove that eating organic food will protect you against cancer." https://www.nhs.uk/news/cancer/eating-organic-food-linked-lower-cancer-risk/ https://www.nhs.uk/news/cancer/eating-organic-food-linked-lo...
- basicplus2 8y agoRe: the NHS Take on this.. <Previous research has demonstrated other potential beneficial effects of eating an organic diet, such as a lowered level of pesticides in urine samples> Well this can only be a good thing.. i find it unacceptable that pesticides should be found in urine from eating anything in a modern society.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- seanwilson 8y agoIs this just a correlation or it's something more thorough? People that have more money or are more health conscience tend to have better health could be another explanation.
- craftyguy 8y agoAmong my friends and coworkers, those who tend to eat more organic food also do a lot more physical activity/exercise than those who don't. This smells like correlation.
- Hooke 8y agoFrom the article: Participants in the French study also provided information about their general health status, their occupation, education, income and other details, like whether they smoked. Since people who eat organic food tend to be health-conscious and may benefit from other healthful behaviors, and also tend to have higher incomes and more years of education than those who don’t eat organic, the researchers made adjustments to account for differences in these characteristics, as well as such factors as physical activity, smoking, use of alcohol, a family history of cancer and weight. Even after these adjustments, the most frequent consumers of organic food had 76 percent fewer lymphomas, with 86 percent fewer non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas, and a 34 percent reduction in breast cancers that develop after menopause. Granted, it could be that these socio-economic factors weren't adequately corrected for, but they did at least attempt to.
- craftyguy 8y agoHow do you even make those adjustments? Do we actually understand the impact on developing cancer that exercise has, for example?
- jmcmichael 8y agoThe field of biostatistics is dedicated to answering those kinds of questions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biostatistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biostatistics
- jcampbell1 8y agoPeople that drink exactly one glass of red wine per day are wealthier than average, don't over indulge, and live longer. Ergo, red wine makes you live longer.
- kirrent 8y agoNope. https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/problems-with-that-organic-food-and-cancer-study/ https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/problems-with-...
- Hooke 8y agoI find most of this post persuasive, but it seems to me like there shouldn't be excessive certainty on either the yes or no column here. The author's claim is not "no, this is false" but "the study is not bad, for what it is, but is highly limited in the conclusions that can be drawn from it, and it has some serious limitations." It seems reasonable to remain agnostic for now and pursue further studies on the topic that attempt to more accurately correct for other confounding variables. This also gives me pause: "It is certainly possible that some pesticide is causing adverse health effects at the currently used levels (although there is no current evidence for this)." That claim seems to me to be false if we include studies on occupational use of pesticides [1]. It could definitely be the case that the residues that ordinary consumers encounter are entirely non-toxic, but again, it seems to me like the jury is still out on that. [1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0128766 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- olliej 8y agoThe other correlation - that appeared strong was with women being vastly more likely to eat organic. Using similar logic to the headline, eating organic food makes you a woman.
- hannob 8y ago"In a new study, those who ate more organic food had fewer cancer diagnoses" The title is correct. And it's not surprising at all. People who eat organic food are usually richer, which comes with all kinds of health benefits. What this study didn't show: That they had less cancer because of the organic food.
- krackers 8y agoAnd they tend to be more careful about diet/nutrition/exercise in the first place
- manmal 8y agoThe study could have controlled for income, as it should for smoking, exercise, etc. Richer people also eat out more often (some, all the time) and usually are served the cheapest ingredients there, except for very expensive venues.
- jlarocco 8y ago> Richer people also eat out more often (some, all the time) and usually are served the cheapest ingredients there, except for very expensive venues. I'm not sure about that last part. It's not hard to find moderately priced restaurants using quality and/or organic ingredients. It won't be fast food prices, obviously, but it isn't going to break the bank, either.
- manmal 8y agoIDK, there’s so many reports of rancid olive oil and the wrong type of fish being served. Ingredients are where restaurants can really save costs without anyone noticing.
- jmcmichael 8y agoAs noted elsewhere, the study accounted for those variables: "Participants in the French study also provided information about their general health status, their occupation, education, income and other details, like whether they smoked. Since people who eat organic food tend to be health-conscious and may benefit from other healthful behaviors, and also tend to have higher incomes and more years of education than those who don’t eat organic, the researchers made adjustments to account for differences in these characteristics, as well as such factors as physical activity, smoking, use of alcohol, a family history of cancer and weight. Even after these adjustments, the most frequent consumers of organic food had 76 percent fewer lymphomas, with 86 percent fewer non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas, and a 34 percent reduction in breast cancers that develop after menopause."
- stevew20 8y agoPeople who can afford to buy organic food are in a completely different income bracket than those who can't. Organic foods are usually %50-%100 more expensive than "non organic" food, meaning that the group of organic food buyers excludes low income households, and selects higher income households on average. Low income households are much more likely to have lead paint, low quality plumbing (more imbibed lead), mold growth, etc... Low income household breadwinners are also more likely to have higher stress jobs and work in unlheathy environments, and to really tip the scales, they are are much more likely to be smokers. This study doesn't control for any of that, so... Yeah. Don't be poor, I guess.
- parliament32 8y agoNot discounting the benefits or organic food, but this specific study isn't very useful: there's certainly a correlation between eating organics and lower cancer rates, but there are too many other plausible variables (ie people who buy organics are more healthy in general: exercise more, have more disposable income (therefore higher quality of life), are more mindful of other environmental problems, etc). What would actually be interesting is a double blind study: a group of people get a weekly box of unbranded vegetables, either organic or regular, then track health/cancer rates/whatever.
- throwaway33114 8y agoA thing that really annoys me on HN (though it's certainly not specific to this website but more general to any place where the users self style as 'intellectuals' or 'rationally minded' or whatever) is the amount of smart-sounding comments that betray a very cursory reading of what is being posted in the first place. For instance: -Yes, we know correlation isn't causation. Don't you think the authors aren't aware of that, you know, being scientists and all? That doesn't mean they aren't useful and shouldn't be taken into consideration for making policies. It doesn't mean people shouldn't investigate correlations in the search of a potential causal link. For the record, many therapeutic drugs are approved way before the exact mechanism causing the therapeutic effect is known. -Yes, they did control for all the obvious things such as socio-economic factors and so on. You'd know it if you actually read the paper, but searching for confounding factors is literally high school statistics. Don't you think the PhD-level authors wouldn't have thought about that? -No, no one ever said that there even was a causal link in the first place. It's explicitly acknowledged in the paper. What makes it interesting, though, is: 1) the large sample size and observation period, and 2) the prospective aspect of it, i.e. they simply waited for possible cancer outcomes instead of actively going for them and hunting for correlations. This makes the findings significantly more solid. Please, remember the guidelines: always take the most charitable interpretation of what someone says. Do assume that scientists are capable of doing their jobs, and whatever you've thought of in the few minutes of attention you gave this link, chances are the authors thought about it in the seven-odd years it took to publish it.