Nutrition-related health effects of organic foods: a systematic review --...

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ajcn.2010.29269v1

Am J Clin Nutr (May 12, 2010). doi:10.3945/ajcn.2010.29269

2010 American Society for Clinical Nutrition
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Nutrition-related health effects of organic foods: a systematic review1,2,3,4

Alan D Dangour, Karen Lock, Arabella Hayter, Andrea Aikenhead, Elizabeth Allen and Ricardo Uauy
1 From the NutritionPublic Health Intervention Research Unit Department of EpidemiologyPopulation Health (ADD AH

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AARU) the Health Services Research Unit Department of Public HealthPolicy (KL)the Medical Statistics Unit Department of EpidemiologyPopulation Health (EA) London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine London United Kingdom.
2 The UK Food Standards Agency had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or writing

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3 Supported by the UK Food Standards Agency (PAU221). 4 Address correspondence to AD Dangour, Nutrition and Public Health Intervention Research Unit, Department of

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Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, United Kingdom. E-mail: alan.dangour@lshtm.ac.uk. ABSTRACT Background: There is uncertainty over the nutrition-related benefits to health of consuming organic foods.

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Articles by Dangour, A. D. Articles by Uauy, R.

Objective: We sought to assess the strength of evidence that nutrition-related health benefits could be attributed to the consumption of foods produced under organic farming methods. Design: We systematically searched PubMed, ISI Web of Science, CAB Abstracts, and Embase between 1 January 1958 and 15 September 2008 (and updated until 10 March 2010); contacted subject experts; and hand-searched bibliographies. We included peer-reviewed articles with English abstracts if they reported a comparison of health outcomes that resulted from consumption of or exposure to organic compared with conventionally produced foodstuffs. Results: From a total of 98,727 articles, we identified 12 relevant studies. A variety of different study designs were used; there were 8 reports (67%) of human studies, including 6 clinical trials, 1 cohort study, and 1 cross-sectional study, and 4 reports (33%) of studies in animals or human cell lines or serum. The results of the largest study suggested an association of reported consumption of strictly organic dairy products with a reduced risk of eczema in infants, but the majority of the remaining studies showed no evidence of differences in nutrition-related health outcomes that result from exposure to organic or conventionally produced foodstuffs. Given the paucity of available data, the heterogeneity of study designs used, exposures tested, and health outcomes investigated, no quantitative meta-analysis was justified. Conclusion: From a systematic review of the currently available published literature, evidence is lacking for nutrition-related health effects that result from the consumption of organically produced foodstuffs. Received for publication January 25, 2010. Accepted for publication April 20, 2010.

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