The presentation focuse on the impact of pesticides on growing organisms, such as infants and young childre

Alleva, Renata

Bernasconi, Sergio

VANIA, Andrea

The Italian Journal of Pediatrics

English

PubMed

Archivio della ricerca- Università di Roma La Sapienza

MEETING ABSTRACT Open AccessIs organic diet really necessary for children?Andrea Vania1*, Renata Alleva2, Sergio Bernasconi3From 71st Congress of the Italian Society of Pediatrics. Joint National Meeting SIP, SIMGePeD, Study Groupon Pediatric Ultrasound, SUP Study Group on HypertensionRome, Italy. 4-6 June 2015Pesticides are a wide class of phytochemicals commonlyused in conventional agriculture. Most of them are charac-terized by being very toxic to humans and persistent in theenvironment, and represent long-term dangers as theybiomagnify up the food-chain. Humans, and particularlybreastfed babies, are at the top of the food-chain sincethey ingest more food and water per unit body weightthan adults, so any exposure is greater in proportion totheir size. For such a reason, dietary intake of pesticidesrepresents the major source of exposure for infants andchildren. Since they are growing so quickly, infants andyoung children are more susceptible to the effects of pesti-cide exposure than adults [1]. Their internal organs arestill developing and maturing and the enzymatic, meta-bolic, and immune systems are less efficient than those ofan adult. Furthermore, it has been shown that there are“critical periods” in human development when exposureto a toxin can permanently alter the way in which an indi-vidual’s biological system operates. Children’s exposure topesticides has been linked to a wide range of disease,including asthma, ADHD, autism and cancer [2]. A maxi-mum residue level (MRL) is the highest level of a pesticideresidue that is legally tolerated in/on food or feed whenpesticides are applied correctly, so that the amounts ofresidues found in food must be safe for consumers andmust be as low as possible. However, the toxicity was setin the adult population, not on children, and it does nottake into account the multiresidue in food. Therefore is apriority for children health to reduce exposure to contami-nated food, similarly to baby food, where no pesticide resi-dues are admitted according to the European Directive.Interventional studies have shown that an organic dietreduces children’s exposure to pesticides, and when kidsswitched from a conventional to an organic diet, urinarypesticide metabolites dropped to almost undetectablelevels [3]. Organic food also contributes to increasingnutritional quality: a recent meta-analysis reported thatorganic food is richer in vitamins and antioxidants com-pared to conventional ones [4]. The environmental bene-fits of organic agriculture to air, soil and water, consist oflowering the total toxic burden to our ecosystems. Asdemand for organic foods continues to grow, more farm-ers are likely to view organic methods as a viable and mar-ketable option, helping to stabilize supply and price.Authors’ details1Department of Paediatrics and Paediatric Neuropsychiatry, “La Sapienza”University of Rome, Rome, Italy. 2Department of Anesthesiology, IRCCSOrthopaedic Institute Rizzoli, 40131 Bologna, Italy. 3University of Chieti-Pescara, 66100 Chieti, Italy.Published: 30 September 2015References1. Holland N, Lizarraga D, Huen K: Recent progress in the genetics andepigenetics of paraoxonase: why it is relevant to children’senvironmental health. Curr Opin Pediatr 2015, 27(2):240-247.2. Kishi R, Kobayashi S, Ikeno T, Araki A, Miyashita C, Itoh S, et al: Ten years ofprogress in the Hokkaido birth cohort study on environment andchildren’s health: cohort profile–updated 2013. Environ Health Prev Med2013, 18(6):429-450.3. Lu C, Toepel K, Irish R, Fenske RA, Barr DB, Bravo R: Organic DietsSignificantly Lower Children’s Dietary Exposure to OrganophosphorusPesticides. Environ Health Perspect 2006, 114(2):260-263.4. Barański M, Srednicka-Tober D, Volakakis N, Seal C, Sanderson R, Stewart GB,et al: Higher antioxidant and lower cadmium concentrations and lowerincidence of pesticide residues in organically grown crops: a systematicliterature review and meta-analyses. Br J Nutr 2014, 112(5):794-811.doi:10.1186/1824-7288-41-S2-A75Cite this article as: Vania et al.: Is organic diet really necessary forchildren? Italian Journal of Pediatrics 2015 41(Suppl 2):A75.* Correspondence: andrea.vania@uniroma1.it1Department of Paediatrics and Paediatric Neuropsychiatry, “La Sapienza”University of Rome, Rome, ItalyFull list of author information is available at the end of the articleVania et al. Italian Journal of Pediatrics 2015, 41(Suppl 2):A75http://www.ijponline.net/content/41/S2/A75© 2015 Vania et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided theoriginal work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

Is organic diet really necessary for children?

Andrea Vania

Renata Alleva

Sergio Bernasconi

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Italian Journal of Pediatrics

https://iris.uniroma1.it/bitstream/11573/819426/4/Vania_Is%20organic%20diet_2015.pdf

Is organic diet really necessary for children?

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