Are Chemical Fertilizers Causing Ovarian Cancer?
Talk about chemical fertilizers shouldn't just be limited to our gardens. Time and time again, new studies reveal the damaging effects of chemical fertilizers on human life. A study conducted at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia compared over 800 women with ovarian cancer and found surprising results.
What researchers found is that women who ate two or more eggs per week had double the risk of ovarian cancer. The culprit? The abundance of chemical fertilizers routinely used by chicken farmers. (This shouldn't come as a surprise if you know anything about the effects of chemical fertilizers.)
Dr. David Purdie, a researcher at the institute, believes that chickens exposed to fertilizers or pesticides while they forage for food may pick up the poisons in these agricultural products and transfer them to their eggs. Easily passed from the mother hen, chemical fertilizers or pesticides make their way into the egg. We then eat the eggs, unaware of the hazardous chemicals that we are consuming. Although many of the substances thought to cause ovarian cancer have been since banned, these chemicals have a tendency to stay in the environment for a very long time.
Interestingly, the study also suggests that these women who were diagnosed with ovarian cancer were actually first exposed to these chemicals by eating contaminated eggs twenty or thirty years ago. What happens is that these harmful chemicals accumulate in the body and are never disposed of. Years later, their harmful effects surface in the form of cancer, specifically of the ovarian kind.
Thankfully, the risk of cancer from eating eggs is probably less now than it was decades ago because chicken farmers have since recognized that a lot of fertilizers used to grow chicken feed are, in fact, dangerous. It also helps that many farmers are now using all-natural fertilizers which guarantee healthy, organic eggs for consumers.
So what can you do to avoid this risk? Eat eggs marked organic. We have more options at the grocery store than we had decades ago. Be selective of the eggs you buy in your local grocery store. Check the labels first. Don't settle for something that may cause you cancer twenty or thirty years from now.
Chemical Fertilizers Linked to Brain Cancer
Recent concern has been brought to the attention of farmers, gardeners and the general public in the probable link between chemical fertilizers and cancer. Because cancer has become prevalent amongst our communities, we've seen a popular trend to return to organic living. But as the popularity of organic living soars, so too does the concern of what's being used on the produce we find in our local supermarkets.
Over the years, the demand to grow, maintain and even sustain foods with longer shelf life has been taken to a new level. (The more research done, the more scientists realize that these farming techniques, emphasizing quantity rather than quality, means fewer nutrients found in the produce we buy from our local grocery stores.)
What has happened is that in order to keep up and compete in the economy, companies, farmers and even gardeners have resorted to using pesticides and chemical fertilizers to enhance their produce. Chemical fertilizers are used to assist a plant's growth and then, once picked, used to make sure it will stay "fresh" through transportation, shelving and eventually to your kitchen. (Again, this is why you want to watch what you purchase in the local produce section.)
Scientists have concluded that these chemical fertilizers and pesticides used to "assist" our fruits and vegetables are actually causing cancer. This shouldn't shock you. Think about it. Our bodies are not designed to ingest loads and loads of chemical fertilizers. The thing is, in our attempts to eat "healthy" we are actually introducing unnatural, counterproductive, and cancer-causing chemicals to our body.
This warning should be especially given to farmers and gardeners because of their time and direct contact with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Research published in the journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in June of 2007 came to the conclusion that farmers and those who use pesticides and fertilizers (such as gardeners) have a greater risk of developing brain cancer.
To determine the connection between brain cancer and weed and feed-type fertilizers, scientists analyzed more than two hundred brain cancer cases and compared them to over four hundred healthy people in a control group. Lifestyle information including the exposure to pesticides or fertilizers was also determined. The study is among the largest to specifically examine the link between occupational and environmental exposure to garden chemicals and brain cancer.
It was found that all agricultural workers exposed to pesticides have a slightly greater risk of developing a brain tumor, and of course those exposed to the highest levels have more than twice the risk of developing fatal brain cancer.
Similarly, people who use pesticides on household plants were found to be at more than twice the increased risk of developing brain cancer. More research needs to be done to identify the types of garden chemicals that pose the greatest risk for triggering the development of cancer, but needless to say, why take a chance?
So whether you are a farmer, gardener, or just a consumer, it is important that you reduce if not eliminate the use and direct contact of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Continue to grow your own fruits and vegetables but do so with the best all natural fertilizer you can find, not only for your safety and health, but for your plants as well.
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