Kids need organics - updates - organic produce

A study at the University of Washington in Seattle' has confirmed what had only been a logical assumption until now. Children who eat organic produce are less likely to consume dangerously high levels of pesticides.

Animal studies have shown that exposure to chemicals in early life can cause, or can increase, vulnerability to cancer later in life. But few human studies have examined not only the chemicals present in various foods but also the amount of such substances that children consume.

The report reviews several human studies that suggest a causal relationship between developmental exposure to contaminants and cancer in children and young adults. Studies reviewed include brain cancers in children whose parents were exposed to contaminants while on the job; pesticides, paints, paint thinners and solvents and leukemia; and cigarette smoke and childhood cancer.

The researchers concluded that childhood exposure to carcinogens increases sensitivity to those carcinogens later in life. For example, one study looked at individuals who had been exposed perinatally--that is, during the period from a few weeks before birth to a few weeks after birth--to the industrial chemical ethylene thiourea, or ETU. They developed more cancers when exposed again to the same chemical in adulthood than individuals exposed only in adulthood.

The effects of perinatal exposure to several specific compounds are also discussed in the report. Early exposure to the herbicide atrazine, for instance, was found to prolong the later period of sensitivity to carcinogens and alter mammary gland development during puberty.

The analysis shows that levels of dimethylthiophosphate, or DMTP, in children eating organic foods were significantly lower than in those eating conventional foods.

Organic food choices by parents have a big impact on child pesticide exposures, say the authors, and "to our knowledge, no other studies have tested this hypothesis." The review shows that choosing organic lowers the chance that children will exceed EPA safety thresholds, therefore making the health impacts of pesticide exposure less likely.

The groundbreaking research by Cynthia Curl, PhD, and her team appeared early in 2003 in National Health Perspectives, a journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the US National Institutes of Health.

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