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IN THE KNOW ABOUT THE “O”
AN ORGANIC DIET REDUCES EXPOSURE
Research released earlier this year in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research adds to the growing body of literature showing that switching to an all organic diet reduces existing levels of pesticides detected in children and adults. While previous studies on organic diet intervention have focused on organophosphate pesticides, this study tested for a broad range of pesticides including neonicotinoids.
The pesticides detected in all participants in this study have been associated with many adverse health outcomes including the impairment of childhood development, impacts on reproductive health, asthma, and cancer. Pesticide exposure in the general population is largely attributed to what people eat. In 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration detected pesticide residue in nearly 50 percent of foods sampled from domestic and imported sources.
In this latest study, researchers from UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco and Friends of the Earth collected urine from four families across the U.S. (n=16 participants; total of 158 urine samples) both before and after an organic diet intervention to
test whether the organic diet would reduce suspected levels of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and their metabolites. After only six days of eating a purely organic diet, there was a significant reduction in 13 of the 14 detected pesticide and pesticide metabolite compounds that represented organophosphates, neonicotinoids, pyrethroids and the herbicide 2,4-D.
The most dramatic reductions were found in a class of insecticides called organophosphates, which are associated with harm
to children’s developing brains. A metabolite of Malathion dropped 95.0%, and a metabolite of chlorpyrifos dropped
60.7%. Chlorpyrifos is a neurotoxic pesticide that was banned for residential use in 2001 and court-ordered to be banned for agricultural use in 2018, although this recent ban has not yet been implemented.
The neonicotinoid clothianidin also dropped dramatically (82.7%). The authors recommend more work be done to explore the role of diet in exposure to neonicotinoids, which are known to be toxic to birds and bees, and are the most widely used class of insecticides in the world despite being banned in many countries.
This study’s important work contributes to the growing body of research that shows how eating organic food can reduce exposure to pesticides associated with non-certified organic agriculture.
As the result of this and other similar work, The Organic Center recognized environmental health scientist Dr. Asa Bradman with its Award of Excellence at the organization’s annual benefit dinner
www.ota.com
in March in conjunction with Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, California.
Dr. Bradman, who co-founded the Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health (CERCH) at the University
of California at Berkeley, helps direct exposure and health studies as part of the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS) partnership in the Salinas Valley in California. CHAMACOS is the longest running longitudinal birth cohort study of pesticides and other environmental exposures among children in an agricultural community. CHAMACOS means “small children” in Mexican Spanish, which reflects the population served.
Dr. Bradman has co-authored some of the most important work
on the impacts of pesticides on the health of pregnant women and children in agricultural communities, with several studies showing links between higher organophosphate pesticide exposure during pregnancy and poorer neurodevelopment in children. He was a researcher involved in the latest study mentioned at the beginning of this article.
Dr. Bradman is renowned in the organic sector. He holds the scientist seat on The Organic Center’s Board of Trustees and
is an Environmental Protection and Resource Conservation Representative on the National Organic Standards Board. He also leads an initiative to improve environmental health in California childcare facilities, and was a recipient of the IPM Innovators award from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and the Children’s Environmental Health Excellence Award from the
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency. He participates in extensive community outreach and education, and interfaces with other scientists, state and federal agencies, policymakers, and industry. He participates on several advisory bodies and is past member (2007- 2016) and chair of the Scientific Guidance Panel for the California Environmental Biomonitoring Program to which he was originally appointed by then Governor Arnold Schwarzenenegger.
For more information on this and other studies confirming the benefits of consuming organic foods, visit The Organic Center’s website: www.organic-center.org.
TO PESTICIDES
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