Eat Your Organic Veggies

Mom always told us to eat our vegetables. And now researchers are proving she was right...especially if they are organic. 

Vegan Diet Helps Weight Loss 

A low-fat, plant-based diet is more effective at helping women lose weight and improve insulin sensitivity than one that includes meat, according to a study appearing recently in The American Journal of Medicine. The study, involving 59 overweight, postmenopausal women, was conducted by Neal D. Barnard, M.D., president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), along with colleagues at Georgetown University Hospital and George Washington University. Half of the study participants followed a vegan diet; the other half followed a control diet based on National Cholesterol Education Program guidelines. 

“The study participants following the vegan diet enjoyed unlimited servings of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and other healthful foods that enabled them to lose weight without feeling hungry,” says Dr. Barnard. “As they began to experience the positive effects – weight loss and improved insulin sensitivity – the women in the intervention group became even more motivated to follow the plant-based eating plan.” 

Other research has shown that obesity and overweight are far less prevalent in populations following a plant-based diet. In a recent study of more than 55,000 Swedish women, Tufts University researcher P. Kirstin Newby and her colleagues found that 40 percent of meat-eaters were overweight or obese while only 25 to 29 percent of vegetarians and vegans were. Worldwide, vegetarian populations experience lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and other life-threatening diseases. Another study appearing in the Journal of Urology in September shows that a low-fat, primarily vegan diet may slow the progression of prostate cancer. 

Kids Benefit From Organic Foods 

Switching to organic foods provides children “dramatic and immediate” protection from widely used pesticides that are used on a variety of crops, according to a new study. A team of environmental health scientists from the University of Washington, Emory University and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that concentrations of two organophosphate pesticides – malathion and chlorpyrifos – declined substantially in the bodies of elementary-school age children during a five-day period when organic foods were substituted for conventional foods. 

The two chemicals are the most commonly used insecticides in U.S. agriculture. More than two million pounds were applied to California crops in 2003, according to records of the state Department of Pesticide Regulation. The health effects of exposure to minute amounts of pesticides found in food are largely unknown, especially for children. Some research, however, suggests that the residue may harm the developing nervous system. 

For 15 days, the researchers tested the urine of 23 elementary-school age children in the Seattle area. During the first three days and last seven days, the children ate their normal foods. But during the middle five days, organic items were substituted for most of their diet, including fruits, vegetables, juices and wheat and corn-based processed items such as cereal and pasta. Average levels of both pesticides in the children “decreased to the non-detect levels immediately after the introduction of organic diets and remained non-detectable until the conventional diets were reintroduced,” the researchers reported in the online version of the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives. 

When they ate organic foods, the children on average had zero malathion detected in their urine, with a high of seven parts per billion in one child. But when the children returned to eating conventional foods, one child had as much as 263 ppb and the average increased to 1.6 ppb. For chlorpyrifos, the children had less than one part per billion when they ate organic foods, but the average increased five-fold as soon as they returned to their previous diet. 

“In conclusion,” the researchers wrote, “we were able to demonstrate that an organic diet provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect against exposure to organophosphorus pesticides that are commonly used in agricultural production.”