“Our research shows that younger non-smokers who eat a higher quantity of healthy foods than the general population are more likely to develop lung cancer,” Nieva said in a press release.
But Leurent and others immediately pointed out problems. First, there’s no control group, which should have included a similar group of non-smoking adults under 50 who do not have lung cancer. The finding “could simply reflect the fact that younger people, or non‑smokers, tend to have healthier diets than the general population,” Leurent said.
Multiple studies over the years, including meta-analyses and pooled studies, have found that eating fruits and vegetables either lowers the risk of lung cancer or has no effect.
Moreover, leanness—which a person may be on a diet heavy in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains—is known to correlate with lung cancer, Peter Shields, emeritus professor of Medical Oncology at Ohio State University, added. “The authors may not be seeing anything more than this.” Shields also called the mutation groupings “arbitrary,” and it’s unclear if they have overlapping carcinogenic pathways.
“And, even more important,” he continued, “a role for pesticides is entirely speculative.” Shields concluded that “the well-known benefits for eating fruits and vegetables … far outweigh any speculation of data interpretation from this study.”
Leurent equally dismissed the study, saying it was a “stretch” to link lung cancer to specific food groups, let alone pesticides that may or may not be on them. “Overall, this abstract provides little evidence of an association between diet and lung cancer, let alone any causal link, and offers no meaningful support for claims regarding pesticides,” he said.