Organic Foods Offer No Meaningful Nutritional Benefits

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Organic Foods Offer No Meaningful Nutritional Benefits, AAP Says

Caroline Helwick
Oct 24, 2012

NEW ORLEANS — Organic foods are essentially no more nutritious than conventionally produced foods, but whether they are safer is still an unanswered question, according to a new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released here during its 2012 National Conference and Exhibition.

The AAP conducted an extensive analysis of scientific evidence surrounding organic produce, dairy products, and meat. The conclusion was mixed: Although organic foods have the same vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, proteins, and other nutrients as conventional foods, they also have lower pesticide levels and, in the case of meat, are less likely to be contaminated with drug-resistant bacteria, because antibiotics are not used in these animals.

"In the long term, there is currently no direct evidence that consuming an organic diet leads to improved health or lower risk of disease," AAP officials said in a statement.

The new recommendations were presented at a press conference during the meeting and concurrently published online October 22 in the journal Pediatrics.

"We found no significant difference in nutrients in organic vs conventional foods, with the caveat that such studies are very difficult to conduct due to many confounding factors," said Joel Forman, MD, associate professor of pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City. Dr. Forman was on the AAP Council on Environmental Health when the effort was initiated.

Because such studies are "problematic," he acknowledged that "we don't have 100% of the answers."

Organic Milk No Better

Organic milk also does not offer significant health benefits, the authors concluded.

Many parents buy organic milk out of concerns over growth hormones and estrogen that may be fed to conventionally raised cows. But Dr. Forman said bovine growth hormone has no effect on humans, nor does estrogen appear to cause health concerns.

"There is no reason to think there is a clinical impact on people," he said. "And as for estrogen, breast milk has higher levels. We don't think there is a health impact from organic vs conventional milk."

He suggested that a better way to avoid estrogen exposure is to drink nonfat milk, because the more fat content in milk — organic or not — the higher the concentration of estradiol.

Steven Abrams, MD, professor of pediatrics and neonatology at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, and Medical Director of the Neonatal Nutrition Program, weighed in at the press briefing. He said parents can choose to buy organic products "for issues of social dynamics," but buying organic milk to avoid hormones "is not justified, based on the evidence."

Dr. Abrams added that organic infant formulas also hold no additional benefit over conventional formulas, and "the standard is still breast milk."

He further noted another reason to stick to conventional dairy products: cost. "Organic milk, especially, can be expensive, as our report states, and this is an issue for many families," he said.

Organic Meats Reduce Drug-Resistant Bacteria Risk

Purchasing meat from organic farms that do not use antibiotics for nontherapeutic uses has the potential to reduce antibiotic resistance in bacteria, the report further stated.

Between 40% and 80% of antimicrobials used in the United States are used in farm animals, three quarters of which are for nontherapeutic uses. Many of these drugs are identical or similar to drugs used in humans. This nontherapeutic use promotes the development of drug-resistant organisms in the animals, and these microbes then colonize in humans.

Pesticide Exposure May Be Lower in Organic Foods

Organic foods may, however, offer some benefit in terms of a reduced exposure to pesticides, the authors concluded.

The report stated, "Organic diets have been convincingly demonstrated to expose consumers to fewer pesticides associated with human disease...[but] additional data are needed to identify relationships between diet and pesticide exposure and individual health outcomes."

"We feel clearly that conventionally grown fruits and vegetables do have additional pesticide exposure. The levels are low, but there are real differences," Dr. Forman said.

He commented on 2 related studies of interest. A large prospective birth cohort study measured pesticide exposure in pregnant farm workers in California and found in their offspring lower mental development index scores at 24 months and attentional problems at 3.5 and 5 years of age (Marks AR et al, Environ Health Perspect 2010;118:1768-1774).

In another small study of children consuming conventional produce, urinary pesticide residues could be reduced to almost nondetectable amounts when they were switched to an organic produce diet for 5 days (Lu C et al, Environ Health Perspect 2006;114:260-263).

Interestingly, he said, the level of urinary pesticide residues when these children consumed a conventional diet were similar to the levels found in the offspring of the pesticide-exposed farm workers in the first study.

"We don't know if these findings are clinically meaningful," he acknowledged, "but we think they may be."

Dr. Forman said that organic farming is more valuable for some produce more than others, and he would guide parents to be selective. "For example, the risk of pesticide exposure is much higher for apples than corn," he noted.

Simply Eat Healthy

Dr. Abrams stressed that the message to parents should be simple: consume a healthy diet, whether it is conventional or organic.

"We simply need to emphasize the importance of fruits, vegetables, and dairy in children's diets," he said.

Janet Silverstein, MD, professor of pediatrics at the University of Florida, Gainesville, agreed. "Many families have a limited food budget, and we do not want families to choose to consume smaller amounts of more expensive organic foods and thus reduce their overall intake of healthy foods, like produce."

Gary Mallis, MD, a solo practitioner in Scottsdale, Arizona, was glad to hear the AAP-issued guidance on this topic, and he said he would find this useful in his practice.

"Parents ask me all the time about organic foods, and I'm at something of a loss for words. I don't want to recommend they eat products that are cost-prohibitive. I do get a good number of questions, especially about organic milk and starting when the child is only 1 year of age. That's the big one," he said. "It's good to have these data. Patients like to have information that is based on studies."

Dr. Forman, Dr. Abrams, Dr. Silverstein, and Dr. Mallis have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 2012 National Conference and Exhibition. Presented October 22, 2012.

Pediatrics. 2012;130:e1406 - e1415. Full text


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Cite this article: Organic Foods Offer No Meaningful Nutritional Benefits, AAP Says. Medscape. Oct 24, 2012.

fishgutzy

Organic does have one very negative affect. Yield per acre for organic farming is half or less than conventional farming and therefore more harmful overall to the environment.
There are still brain dead zealots that think all farming in the US should be forced to convert to organic. But there are a few huge barriers to that.
1. It would require converting all available open space to farming.
2. There are not enough cows on the planet to produce enough fertilizer to convert just the US to organic farming.
3. They same zealots want to ban livestock farming which is the primary source of organic fertilizer.

wibutterflymagic

Well, I can't say yes or no to nutritional benefits but I feel organic foods are going to have a lower risk of being genetically modified. If farmers are concerned enough to not use chemical pesticides and growth hormones and the such then common sense says the likelihood that they are genetically modified is going to be less. Organic foods are better for us for the simple fact that poisonous chemicals aren't used to grow them therefore these chemicals are not getting into our bodies. It's because of all these chemicals on our fruits, vegetables and in the packaged foods that our children eat that their bodies are getting out of wack and kids are starting puberty years ahead of what they should be. Personally what I've experienced, the organic foods that I eat taste better and have a longer shelf life then their non-organic counterparts and don't we eat something because it tastes good?

melsinct

I never thought organic food was more nutritious and I was surprised when this "news" came out that people were shocked. I like organic because it contains less pesticides. You can keep your peppers and broccoli doused in Round Up. I'll take mine organic, thank you very much.

DrMAvDPhD

This is all completely logical. They aren't claiming that there aren't other detrimental effects of chemicals found in trace amounts in non-organic food (although, to label organic, they really just have to have LESS of certain chemicals, not none, that's policy for you). Of course, non-organic food also has to be way under toxic levels for all chemicals as well, so whatever.

There are differences in nutrition between farmed fish and naturally raised/caught fish, which have more healthy omega oils due to their diet. Also, I do believe there are nutritional differences between grass fed and grain fed beef, grass fed being more beneficial. Neither of those things are part of the "organic" label craze.