The products that leave the most pesticides in the body are named

The study of the Ecological Working Group (EWG) shows that what we put on a plate leaves its mark in our body. It turned out that some fruits and vegetables carry not only vitamins and fiber, but sometimes a noticeable number of pesticides. The work is published in International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Protection.

“What we eat directly affects the level of pesticides inside us,” explains Alexis Temkin, EWG Vice President of Science and the leading author of the study.

He clarifies that vegetables and fruits remain the necessary part of the diet, but a diet with a high content of products tended to accumulate pesticides: strawberries, spinach, bell pepper – leads to increased levels of these chemicals.

Researchers have combined data from the Ministry of Agriculture on Pesticides in products for 2013-2018 with questionnaires and biomonitoring analyzes 1837 participants in the national health and nutrition survey (NHANES). On the basis of these data, a “scale of exposure to pesticides” was created, evaluating the combination of the frequency of consumption of fruits and vegetables and the content of chemicals in them.
The effect of pesticides on the body is associated with the risk of cancer, hormonal disorders, problems with reproduction and even damage to the nervous system in children.

The analysis showed that the diet affects the effects of pesticides stronger than it could be expected. People who used products with a large number of traces of these chemicals had noticeably higher biomarkers in the urine. At the same time, potato consumption makes confusion – different methods of preparation and use make the influence difficult to properly, so it was excluded from a number of tests.

EWG emphasizes that we are faced with a “mixture” of chemicals. In the studied fruits and vegetables, the remains of 178 pesticides were found, however, only 42 of them corresponded to urine tests in people. This confirms that we are subject to simultaneously exposure to several substances, and not all of them are monitored by federal programs.

Particular attention is paid to vulnerable groups: young children and pregnant women are more sensitive to the toxic influence of pesticides, which makes high -quality control and informing extremely important. For consumers, EWG recommends that there are many fruits and vegetables, but give preference to organic products where the pesticide load is above all.

The list of “dirty dozen” contains products with the largest number of chemicals:

• spinach
• strawberry
• cabbage – cale, kohlrabi and mustard leaves
• grape
• ppErsiki
• cherry
• nEktarins
• Pear
• apples
• blackberry
• blueberry
• potato

The study confirms that the transition to organic products reduces the biomarkers of pesticides in the body in a few days.

“These data emphasize the value of federal biomonitoring and inspections of the remains of pesticides. Only such system measures make it possible to truly assess the impact and protect the health of the population, ”adds Varun Subramaniam, scientific analyst EWG.