Khaberni - A group of researchers presented shocking findings at the annual meeting held by the American Association for Cancer Research this year from April 17 to April 22, 2026, revealing a possible link between healthy foods and increased lung cancer rates among non-smokers under 50 years old.
Although these results do not mean that healthy food causes the disease, they open up new questions about the role of hidden environmental factors, such as pesticide residues, in explaining the rising lung cancer rates among non-smokers.
The research conducted by a group of researchers led by lung cancer specialist Dr. George Nayiva from the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, has resulted in a recommendation that stimulates researchers towards a new path that may reveal the relationship between the increased numbers of lung cancer patients among non-smokers under 50 years old, especially women, and the consumption of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.
This recommendation is based on a study that analyzed data from a group of lung cancer patients totaling 187 individuals, aged between 18 and 50 years, all diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which represents about 85% of cases globally.
The sample included 157 women and a smaller number of men, and the genetic mutations of each case were documented, then the participants were divided into 3 groups according to the type of mutations and the biological pathways associated with the development of cancer cells.
Subsequently, the researchers gathered additional information about the participants, most notably their smoking history, alongside analyzing their dietary patterns through dietary questionnaires.
To measure the quality of the diet, researchers used the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), which ranges from 0 to 100, where higher scores reflect a healthier diet. The results for the participants ranged between 63 and 65, and the food components consumed by the participants were analyzed and classified according to their exposure to pesticides, based on previous studies that categorized certain foods as more likely to contain pesticide residues.
Based on this data, the dietary quality and some of its characteristics were linked to potential factors associated with lung cancer development in this group of patients.
Insecticides might reveal the mysterious relationship
The findings showed that the diets of lung cancer patients who were non-smokers, particularly women, relied heavily on vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.
According to previous studies, these widely marketed agricultural crops are among the foods most prone to contamination with pesticide residues.
Based on this, the researchers proposed that factors other than smoking might play a role in lung cancer, including potential effects related to diet or environmental exposure to pollutants.
These results open a new field for the study of environmental factors that may contribute to the increasing rates of lung cancer among women, such as potential exposure to pesticides used in agriculture.
However, the researchers emphasize that further studies are needed to confirm or refute these hypotheses, especially since the current study relied on estimates of pesticide levels in dietary items like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, based on data from previous research.
Dr. Nayiva, the principal researcher in the study, pointed out that moving towards more precise measuring methods, through analyzing blood or urine samples in patients to measure the level of chemicals that may accumulate in the body as a result of eating contaminated foods, would be critical to better understanding the relationship between diet, chemical exposure, and disease risk.
Insecticides and Lung Cancer Link
Statistics indicate that non-smoking women are more likely to develop lung cancer compared to non-smoking men, with over 50% of women diagnosed with lung cancer being non-smokers, prompting extensive research into the primary factor that may increase the rate among this group and thus avoid it and reduce the incidence rate.
A group of researchers in the United States conducted a study to evaluate the impact of occupational factors (work environment) on the lung cancer rate in female patients who were non-smokers (429 women, 294 never smokers, and 135 former smokers who stopped smoking 15 years before being diagnosed with lung cancer) between 1986 and 1991.
The results revealed an approximately 2.4-fold increased risk of lung cancer compared to the control group when exposed to insecticides as required by the work environment.
In another study published in the Cancer Research Treatment journal in 2021, researchers from South Korea monitored 7,471 patients between 2003 and 2010, observing new cases of lung cancer during the same period and attempting to isolate the effect of other factors such as age or smoking and evaluate the impact of pesticides on them.
The study found a strong relationship between exposure to insecticides and an increased risk of lung cancer, explaining this ability of the chemicals in pesticides to cause a series of biological changes in cells leading to the subsequent development and growth of cancer cells.
However, they revealed the possibility that other factors might play a hidden role not identified in previous studies they relied on in their analysis, in addition to not targeting specific types of pesticides, and the need to assess the impact of the duration and intensity of exposure to pesticides on the disease’s development or onset.
Pesticide Type May Play a Role
Amid conflicting studies on the relationship between insecticides and lung cancer risk, a group of researchers from China hypothesized that the type of pesticide might play a role in increasing the incidence rate.
To evaluate this hypothesis, they conducted an analysis of 23 published studies, the results of which were published in 2024 in the Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health journal, showing a 35% increased likelihood of lung cancer risk due to exposure to organochlorine pesticides specifically, while no clear effect was observed among 33 other types of pesticides included in the study.
These results confirmed a previous systematic review conducted by researchers from China involving 26 studies published in 2023 that linked 13 types of insecticides to an increased risk of cancer, all belonging to organochlorine pesticides.
Most Exposed to Pesticides
In the same context, a research team from Harvard University conducted a long-term observational study involving 150,830 women and 29,486 men with no registered history of cancer, and divided consumed foods based on approved dietary questionnaires into foods with high concentrations of pesticide residues and foods with lower concentrations.
Over an 18-year follow-up, analysis of results did not reveal a strong and direct relationship between the consumption of vegetables and fruits - whether containing high or low concentrations of pesticides - and an increased risk of cancer, including lung cancer.
However, it is worth noting that dietary data may carry error margins due to participants recording their information themselves without monitoring, and pesticide levels in the body were estimated rather than precisely measured, among other limitations, which may weaken the study results and reduce their credibility.
Healthy foods, which have seen significant public demand, remain the subject of numerous research studies. While controversies arise about the potential exposure of vegetables and fruits - those most consumed in markets - to insecticides, the spotlight is also on the health benefits that organic crops (Organic), which do not use any pesticides or fertilizers during cultivation, may offer.
In this regard, a study published in the JAMA journal in 2018 indicated that increasing consumption of organic products reduces the overall risk of cancer.
The study followed 68,946 people from 2009 to 2016, collecting their consumption rates of approximately 16 types of organic food products, but some researchers argue that the health benefits may be due to the nutritional elements contained in these organic products, which play a role in enhancing their nutritional value regardless of exposure to pesticides they may encounter.
Many experts affirm the need for further research and trials to uncover the true impact of insecticides on health and their relationship with cancer risk, specifically lung cancer.
Lung cancer is one of the major causes of death globally, with 1.8 million deaths recorded in 2022. Although smoking is one of the prominent factors causing lung cancer, the numbers showed an increased incidence of lung cancer among women under 50 years of age who do not smoke, unlike the statistics showing a marked decrease in lung cancer rates among men, driving the quest to uncover the relationship behind these cases.
