Organic food consumption and the incidence of cancer in the Danish diet, cancer and health cohort

Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskriftTidsskriftartikelForskningfagfællebedømt

  • Julie Louise Munk Andersen
  • Kirsten Frederiksen
  • Johnni Hansen
  • Cecilie Kyrø
  • Kim Overvad
  • Tjønneland, Anne
  • Anja Olsen
  • Ole Raaschou-Nielsen

Purpose: Expected beneficial health effects is a major reason why people purchase organically produced foods, although the existing evidence is limited. We investigated if organic food consumption, overall and by specific food groups, is associated with the incidence of cancer. Methods: We used data from the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health cohort. Organic food consumption was reported for vegetables, fruits, dairy products, eggs, meat, and bread and cereal products. Consumption was summarized into an overall organic food score, evaluated as a continuous variable and in categories specified as never, low, medium, and high consumption. We followed 41,928 participants for a median of 15 years, during which 9,675 first cancer cases were identified in the Danish Cancer Registry. We used cox proportional hazard models adjusted for sociodemographic and lifestyle variables to estimate associations between organic food consumption and cancer incidence. Results: No association was observed between intakes of organic foods and incidence of overall cancer. When compared to never eating organic foods, overall organic food consumption was associated with a lower incidence of stomach cancer (low: HR = 0.50, 95% CI: 0.32–0.78, medium: HR = 0.50, 95% CI: 0.32–0.80, high: HR = 0.54, 95% CI: 0.27–1.07, p-trend = 0.09), and higher incidence of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (low: HR = 1.45, 95% CI: 1.01–2.10, medium: HR = 1.35, 95% CI: 0.93–1.96, high: HR = 1.97, 95% CI: 1.28–3.04, p-trend = 0.05). Similar patterns were observed for the specific food groups. Conclusion: Our study does not support an association between organic food consumption and incidence of overall cancer. The scarce existing literature shows conflicting results with risk of specific cancers.

OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftEuropean Journal of Epidemiology
Vol/bind38
Sider (fra-til)59–69
Antal sider11
ISSN0393-2990
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2023

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
This study was funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (Award number: 0134-00441B) and The Danish Cancer Society Scientific Committee (Award number: R269-A15750).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, Springer Nature B.V.

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