33 replies to this topic

[Brett Black]

"The vast bulk of chemicals ingested by humans is natural. For example, 99.99% of the pesticides we eat are naturally present in plants to ward off insects and other predators. Half of these natural pesticides tested at the MTD are rodent carcinogens. Reducing exposure to the 0.01% that are synthetic will not reduce cancer rates.

On the contrary, although fruits and vegetables contain a wide variety of naturally-occurring chemicals that are rodent carcinogens, inadequate consumption of fruits and vegetables doubles the human cancer risk for most types of cancer. Making them more expensive by reducing synthetic pesticide use will increase cancer. Humans also ingest large numbers of natural chemicals from cooking food.

Over a thousand chemicals have been reported in roasted coffee: more than half of those tested (19/28) are rodent carcinogens. There are more rodent carcinogens in a single cup of coffee than potentially carcinogenic pesticide residues in the average American diet in a year, and there are still a thousand chemicals left to test in roasted coffee.

This does not mean that coffee is dangerous but rather that animal cancer tests and worst-case risk assessment, build in enormous safety factors and should not be considered true risks. The reason humans can eat the tremendous variety of natural chemical "rodent carcinogens" is that humans, like other animals, are extremely well protected by many general defense enzymes, most of which are inducible (i.e., whenever a defense enzyme is in use, more of it is made).

Since the defense enzymes are equally effective against natural and synthetic chemicals one does not expect, nor does one find, a general difference between synthetic and natural chemicals in ability to cause cancer in high-dose rodent tests."

from:

Biotherapy. 1998;11(2-3):205-20.
The causes and prevention of cancer: the role of environment.
Ames BN, Gold LS.
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley
94720-3202, USA.
http://potency.berke...therapy1998.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/9677052


---

A presentation on these issues by Bruce Ames:

"States of Fear: Science or Politics? - Bruce Ames"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECyGUijefyM

[scottknl]

Thanks, Brett. Seems to me another argument in favor of CR. After all if you eat less food, then you get fewer pesticides - both natural and man made.

As we age our systems that protect us from getting cancers get weaker. It seems to me that we should age less if we want to survive longer w/o cancer. Unfortunately for most, the only ways to do that so far looks like CR or take rapamycin and live in a plastic bubble due to it's immunosuppressive properties.

[Orajel]

Some produce is safer to eat organic, and some produce doesnt matter as much. You can look up charts on line.

ex. peaches
get them organic, porous skin allows greater amounts of pestacides to be absorbed

avacados
doesnt matter as much, dont eat the skin and it is mostly impervious

[InquilineKea]

The thing with synthetic pesticides, though, is that they're not just any random artificial chemical. They're super-selectively designed to be selective to the pests, and this most often involves the pest's nervous system. Furthermore, even if they might NOT increase your risk of death, they can still damage your neurons in spite of that.