7 Nasty and Crazy Effects of Pesticides in Food and Pesticide Exposure

Posted by clnews _Featured_, Toxicity Saturday, October 13th, 2012

(By Lisa Garber | Truth Theory)

When asked by a skeptical friend why you buy organic, do you find yourself tongue-tied? Was it obesity? Or thyroid problems? Why should you buy organic? There are numerous reasons to skip the mainstream supermarket food and shop at an organic grocer, but just one of those reasons revolves around the effects of pesticides.

Unfortunately, pesticides attack your body on several fronts. Keep this list handy the next time you find yourself wondering if you should buy a carton of conventional strawberries rather than organic to potentially save a few pennies. Remember that all of the following conditions will cost you much more than money; the effects of pesticides will cost you your health.

Here are 7 nasty and crazy effects of pesticides.

Effects of Pesticides – Cancer

The dreaded diagnosis of cancer has been linked in over 260 studies worldwide to agrochemicals. Worse, scientists have linked pesticides with several types of cancers, including that of the breast, prostate, brain, bone, thyroid, colon, liver, lung, and more. Some researchers from USC found that “those who lived within 500 meters of places where methyl bromide, captan and eight other organochlorine pesticides had been applied, they found, were more likely to have developed prostate cancer.”

But even indirect exposure, such as through parental use, has been found to affect children in a terrible way. A study published in Environmental Health Perspectives has linked parental use of pesticides with an increased risk of brain cancer in children. “Parental exposures may act before the child’s conception, during gestation, or after birth to increase the risk of cancer,” the study said. And when the parents are exposed to the pesticides may also play a role in the different cellular changes that lead to cancer.

Obesity and Diabetes

Because pesticides have also been linked to obesity, it’s logical that it would be connected to diabetes, in which obesity often has a role. Some researchers found a higher prevalence of obesity in the participants with high urinary concentrations of a pesticide known as 2,5-dichlorophenol (2,5-DCP). It is important to note that 2,5-DCP is one of the most widely used pesticides on the globe.

Robert Sargis, MD, PhD, revealed his recent study findings at the Endocrine Society’s 94^th Annual Meeting, stating that agricultural fungicide created insulin resistance in fat cells. The journal Diabetes Carepublished in 2011 that people with excess weight and high levels of organochlorine pesticides in their bodies had greater risk of becoming diabetic.

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