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

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • 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.

Original languageEnglish
JournalEuropean Journal of Epidemiology
Volume38
Pages (from-to)59–69
Number of pages11
ISSN0393-2990
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

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

    Research areas

  • Cancer incidence, Cohort study, Epidemiology, Organic food consumption

ID: 332593181