Baudry J, et al. - In this population-based cohort study involving 68,946 French adults, researchers prospectively investigated the association of an organic food-based diet (ie, a diet less likely to contain pesticide residues) with cancer risk. They observed a significant reduction in the risk of cancer in correlation with higher frequency of organic food consumption.

Methods

• Researchers collected and analyzed data from participants with available information on organic food consumption frequency and dietary intake.
• Participants were asked to report their consumption frequency of labeled organic foods (never, occasionally, or most of the time) for 16 products.
• Computing of an organic food score was then performed (range, 0-32 points).
• Follow-up was performed from May 10, 2009, to November 30, 2016.
• They used Cox proportional hazards regression models adjusted for potential cancer risk factors to determine the risk of cancer in association with the organic food score (modeled as quartiles).

Results

• During follow-up, they identified 1,340 first incident cancer cases, with the most prevalent being 459 breast cancers, 180 prostate cancers, 135 skin cancers, 99 colorectal cancers, 47 non-Hodgkin lymphomas, and 15 other lymphomas.
• They noted an inverse association of high organic food scores with the overall risk of cancer (hazard ratio for quartile 4 vs quartile 1, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.63-0.88; P for trend=0.001; absolute risk reduction, 0.6%; hazard ratio for a 5-point increase, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.88-0.96).