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[SANET-MG] organic wheat better than conventional



The article below is an animal study approach that shows organic wheat
is better than conventional even though the organic whaeat has some
mycotoxin.
J. Agric. Food Chem., ASAP Article 10.1021/jf049097p S0021-8561(04)09097-1
Web Release Date: October 28, 2004

Novel Approach for Food Safety Evaluation. Results of a Pilot Experiment
To Evaluate Organic and Conventional Foods

Alberto Finamore, Maria Serena Britti, Marianna Roselli, Diana
Bellovino, Sancia Gaetani, and Elena Mengheri

Abstract:

There is evidence that organic food often contains relatively high
amounts of natural toxic compounds produced by fungi or plants, whereas
corresponding conventional food tends to contain more synthetic toxins
such as pesticide residues, but only a few studies have evaluated the
impact of their consumption on health. This study proposes a novel
approach to evaluate the potential health risk of organic compared to
conventional food consumption, that is, the assay of sensitive markers
of cell function in vulnerable conditions. The markers utilized were
intestinal and splenic lymphocyte proliferative capacity and liver
acute-phase reaction, both responding to the presence of toxins. The
vulnerable conditions in which body defenses can be less efficient were
weaning and protein-energy malnutrition. This study reports the results
of a pilot experiment on one sample of eight varieties of organically
and conventionally grown wheat. Weaned rats were assigned to two groups
fed conventional (CV) or organic (ORG) wheat for 30 days. Each group was
divided in two subgroups of well-nourished (WN) or
protein-energy-malnourished (PEM) rats. For each rat, the lymphocyte
proliferation was assayed by [3H]thymidine incorporation after
stimulation of cells with a mitogen, in a culture medium containing
either commercial fetal calf serum (FCS) or the corresponding rat serum
(RS) to mimic the in vivo proliferative response. The acute-phase
proteins (albumin, transthyretin, transferrin, ceruloplasmin,
retinol-binding protein) were measured in plasma by Western blotting and
immunostaining with specific antibodies. The proliferative response of
lymphocytes cultured with FCS and the amount of acute-phase proteins of
rats fed the ORG wheat sample, either WN or PEM, did not differ from
those of rats fed the CV wheat sample. However, the proliferative
response of lymphocytes cultured with RS was inhibited in PEM-CV
compared with PEM-ORG. The content of mycotoxins was highest in the
organic sample, and therefore the immunotoxic effect was probably due to
other contaminants in the CV wheat. In conclusion, these results
indicate that the conventional wheat sample tested represented a higher
risk for lymphocyte function than the wheat sample organically grown, at
least in vulnerable conditions.


"In conclusion, the results of the pilot experiment using
samples of organic and conventional wheat indicate no higher
risk of introducing toxic compounds with organic compared to
conventional wheat that could affect fundamental cell functions,
such as gut mucosal immune response and liver function, even
in a condition of protein-energy malnutrition that induces a
greater susceptibility to the effects of toxic substances. Moreover,
the data of proliferative capacity of PEM rats when RS
was used, showing an adverse effect of conventional food
despite the lower content of DON, further support the idea that
it is advisable to associate functional with chemical assays in
the evaluation of food health risk. The last consideration is that
the model utilized in this study is not restricted to wheat safety,
but it can be more generally used for the evaluation of possible
risk for health associated with the consumption of several
contaminated food."

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