In conflicting ways, our contemporary world is obsessed with nutrition. On one hand, so many are trying to optimize nutrition, sometimes to the point of unhealthy habits. On the other, the food industry is obsessed with creating more artificial processed foods to get us addicted regardless of the effects on our health. Researchers from the University of Southern California threw us all a curveball, however, by reporting that eating more fruits, veggies, and whole grains could lead to more lung cancer in non-smokers.
Before you grab a candy bar and rub it in your mom’s face for all those years of veggies, the solution is not cutting out these healthy foods but realizing that the real culprit is probably what is sprayed on those foods, pesticides. While tobacco smokers get one type of lung cancer, non-smokers develop a different type. When the researchers evaluated the non-smokers with their specific lung cancer type, they found that they consumed a higher number of daily fruits, veggies, and whole grains.
As an epidemiologic study, they did not measure pesticide levels on the foods or in the patients themselves, so this does not prove anything about pesticides and lung cancer. However, it does come across as discouraging for those who are trying to each healthier. While there could be other unknown factors for this increase in lung cancer, for now you should consider whether buying organic, i.e. pesticide free might be a better option.
As functional medicine doctors like myself continue to both educate the public on the dangers of pesticides (like links between golf course pesticides and Parkinsons disease risk) as well as treat patients for such toxicities (mainly symptoms of neurologic type), we hope that researchers at USC and other facilities will dig into this question further. If we as a society want people to eat healthier, we should at least not poison the healthy foods we promote. Helping everyone pursue healthier, more abundant lives requires both individual treatment for present illness and public policy to limit the use of such pesticides.
Thanks to Science Daily:
University of Southern California – Health Sciences. “Why are healthy young non-smokers developing lung cancer?.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 July 2026. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260712011758.htm>.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
Dr. Eric Potter graduated from Vanderbilt Medical School and then went on to specialize in internal medicine (adult) and pediatric care, spending significant time and effort in growing his medical understanding while caring for patients from all walks of life.
