Organic vegetables ‘no better for health’ than conventionally grown ones

Organic vegetables are no healthier than those grown conventionally, according to a university study. Agricultural scientists grew potatoes, carrots and onions under both organic and traditional conditions then tested the health-giving properties of each.

They found there was little difference in the amount of polyphenols, the chemical compound in vegetables that helps fight cancer, heart disease and dementia.

Organic crops are more expensive and are often perceived as being healthier, though consumers also cite environmental concerns, taste and texture and animal welfare as other reasons for spending more.

The researchers reported: ‘The demand for organic food products is steadily increasing, partly due to the expected health benefits of organic food consumption. ‘On the basis of the study carried out under well-controlled conditions, it cannot be concluded that organically grown onions, carrots, and potatoes generally have higher contents of health-promoting secondary metabolites (polyphenols) in comparison with the conventionally cultivated ones.’

In their two-year study, Danish researchers cultivated 72 plots of land. On half they used traditional farming methods including treatment with pesticides, non-organic fertilisers and nutrients. The other plots were farmed organically, which meant using only natural aids such as manure instead of fertiliser.

Crops were grown at different times of year and in different parts of the country to get a balanced result. This is because the kind of soil, the difference in climate and attacks by pests are major factors in the amount of polyphenols produced by plants.

The study, undertaken by environmental scientists at the University of Copenhagen, was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

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Study links Parkinson’s to brain’s tiny power factories

Results only from laboratory glassware so far but any progress against this distressing ailment is good news

Parkinson’s disease may stem from an energy crisis in the brain, years before symptoms appear. If the research proves true, it could suggest a new approach for Parkinson’s: Giving a boost to a key power switch inside brain cells in hopes of slowing the disease’s inevitable march, instead of just treating symptoms.

“It could be a root cause" of Parkinson’s, said Dr. Clemens Scherzer of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard University.

No one knows what causes the disease. To find genetic clues, Scherzer gathered an international team of researchers to comb studies of more than 300 samples of brain tissue. Their results were reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

“This is an extremely important and interesting observation that opens up new therapeutic targets," said Dr. Flint Beal of New York’s Weill Cornell Medical College, who was not involved with the new study. Beal said scientists already are planning first-stage tests to see if a drug used for diabetes might help Parkinson’s, too, by targeting one of the implicated energy genes.

The research involves power factories inside cells, called mitochondria. Increasingly, scientists suspect that malfunctioning mitochondria play some role in a list of degenerative brain diseases. Brain cells are energy hogs, making up about 2 percent of body weight yet consuming about 20 percent of the body’s energy. So a power drain could trigger some serious long-term consequences.

About 5 million people worldwide, and 1.5 million in the United States, have Parkinson’s, characterized by increasingly severe tremors and periodically stiff or frozen limbs.

Patients gradually lose brain cells that produce dopamine, a chemical key to the circuitry that controls muscle movement. There is no known cure, although dopamine-boosting medication and an implanted device called deep brain stimulation can help some symptoms.

The studies examined by Scherzer’s group involved brain tissue from diagnosed Parkinson’s patients, from symptom-free people whose brains showed early Parkinson’s damage was brewing, and from people whose brains appeared normal. They even used a laser beam to cut out individual dopamine-producing neurons in the most ravaged brain region, the substantia nigra, and examine gene activity.

The team found 10 sets of genes that work at abnormally low levels in Parkinson’s patients, genes that turned out to play various roles in the mitochondria’s energy production, the study reported. Especially compelling, the genes also were sluggish in people with presymptomatic, simmering Parkinson’s.

All the gene sets are controlled by what Scherzer calls a master regulator gene named PGC-1alpha, responsible for activating many other genes that maintain and repair those mitochondrial power factories.

So, might revving up PGC-1alpha in turn boost underperforming mitochondrial genes and protect the brain? To see, the researchers tested dopamine-producing neurons from rats that were treated in ways known to cause Parkinson’s-like damage. Sure enough, boosting the power switch prevented that damage.

This genetic evidence supports years of tantalizing hints that mitochondria are culprits in Parkinson’s, said Dr. Timothy Greenamyre of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

He ticks off the clues: A rare, inherited form of Parkinson’s is caused by a mutated gene involved with mitochondrial function. A pesticide named rotenone that can kill dopamine cells and trigger Parkinson’s symptoms in animals also is toxic to mitochondria. So is another Parkinson’s-triggering chemical named MPTP.

Now with Scherzer’s study, “it’s going to be harder and harder for people to think that mitochondria are just a late player or an incidental player in Parkinson’s disease," Greenamyre said.

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