Breaking a myth a new study says that consuming organic food during pregnancy does not help much in reducing the risks of hypospadias, a birth defect of the penis.
Hypospadias is a birth defect in which the opening of the urethra is on the underside than at the end of penis. In the country, four out of 1,000 boys are born with this condition.
Even though the actual cause of hypospadias is not known, previous studies have found many factors like, side-effects of drugs used by the mother during pregnancy, hereditary and exposure to chemical pollutants like pesticides, fungicides.
Some pesticides used in the vegetables and fruits are known to disrupt the endocrine system of the mother, meaning the chemicals can affect the reproductive hormones.
However, in the current study, the researchers found food choices not playing a major role in the birth defect, except a high consumption of non-organic dairy foods like butter and cheese, Reuters Health reported.
Jeppe Schultz Christensen of Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, Denmark and colleagues included 612 women, both having boys with the birth defect and healthy boys without the defect for examining the link.
All the participants shared details about their food choices and habits during pregnancy.
At the end of the analysis, following an organic diet was not found lowering the risks of having a baby with hypospadia compared to the mothers who followed a conventional diet.
"I'd be very cautious in interpreting these results," Suzan Carmichael, an associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, who was not involved in the study told Reuters Health. "I think the main finding is that most non-organic foods were not associated with the risk."
However, consuming high levels of butter and cheese and never eating organic food during pregnancy was found doubling the risks of having a baby with the disorder.
"I think that the organic choice is probably related to general healthy lifestyle and behavior, and that may be an explanation to the findings," Tina Kold Jensen, one of the researchers on the study, told Reuters Health in an email. "This really doesn't add evidence on whether women should choose organic."
The study has been published in The Journal of Urology.
