Organic produce 'not as good for your health': Vegetables grown with pesticides contain MORE vitamins

The organic approach to gardening which avoids chemicals will not deliver healthier or more tasty produce, it is claimed.

A controversial study from Which? Gardening suggests produce grown using modern artificial methods may well be better for you.

The claims, which will alarm producers and consumers who put their faith in natural food, follow a two-year study.

Non-organic broccoli was found to have significantly higher levels of antioxidants than organically grown samples. Antioxidants are beneficial chemicals that are said to improve general health and help prevent cancer.

The research found that non-organic potatoes contained more Vitamin C than the organic crop, and expert tasters found that non-organically grown tomatoes had a stronger flavour than the organic samples.

Organic bodies have rejected the claims, insisting the trial was too small to offer meaningful results.

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Using mobile phones 'does not increase the risk of cancer'

The only reason this is still an issue is that a lot of conceited people hate anything that is popular and need to feel that they know better

Using a mobile phone does not increase the risk of getting brain cancer, claim British scientists. There has been virtually no change in rates of the disease - despite around 70 million mobile phones being used in the UK.

A study by scientists at the University of Manchester looked at data from the Office of National Statistics on rates of newly diagnosed brain cancers in England between 1998 and 2007. It found no statistically significant change in the incidence of brain cancers in men or women during the nine-year period.

The study, published in the journal Bioelectromagnetics, suggests radio frequency exposure from mobile phone use has not led to a 'noticeable increase' in the risk of developing brain cancers.

Lead researcher Dr Frank de Vocht, an expert in occupational and environmental health in the University of Manchester’s School of Community-Based Medicine, said it was 'unlikely we are at the forefront of a cancer epidemic'.

He said 'Mobile phone use in the United Kingdom and other countries has risen steeply since the early 1990s when the first digital mobile phones were introduced.

'There is an ongoing controversy about whether radio frequency exposure from mobile phones increases the risk of brain cancer. 'Our findings indicate that a causal link between mobile phone use and cancer is unlikely because there is no evidence of any significant increase in the disease since their introduction and rapid proliferation.'

The study says there is no 'plausible biological mechanism' for radio waves to directly damage genes, resulting in cells becoming cancerous. If they are related to cancer, they are more likely to promote growth in an existing brain tumour.

The researchers said they would expect an increase in the number of diagnosed cases of brain cancer to appear within five to 10 years of the introduction of mobile phones and for this to continue as mobile use became more widespread.

The time period studied, between 1998 and 2007, would relate to exposure from 1990 to 2002 when mobile phone use in the UK increased from zero to 65 per cent of households.

The team, which included researchers from the Institute of Occupational Medicine in Edinburgh and Drexel University, Philadelphia, found a small increase in the incidence of cancers in the temporal lobe of 0.6 cases per 100,000 people or 31 extra cases per year in a population of 52 million.

Brain cancers of the parietal lobe, cerebrum and cerebellum in men actually fell slightly between 1998 and 2007. 'Our research suggests that the increased and widespread use of mobile phones, which in some studies was associated to increased brain cancer risk, has not led to a noticeable increase in the incidence of brain cancer in England between 1998 and 2007' said Dr de Vocht.

'It is very unlikely that we are at the forefront of a brain cancer epidemic related to mobile phones, as some have suggested, although we did observe a small increased rate of brain cancers in the temporal lobe.

'However, to put this into perspective, if this specific rise in tumour incidence was caused by mobile phone use, it would contribute to less than one additional case per 100,000 population in a decade.

'We cannot exclude the possibility that there are people who are susceptible to radio-frequency exposure or that some rare brain cancers are associated with it but we interpret our data as not indicating a pressing need to implement public health measures to reduce radio-frequency exposure from mobile phones.'

SOURCE