🌅 No, Eating Fruits and Vegetables Doesn’t Cause Cancer

SOURCE

Gorbatov et al. (Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2026)

WHAT TO KNOW

• A new study by researchers at Keck Medicine USC suggests consuming fruits and vegetables increases your risk of developing lung cancer, possibly due to exposure to agricultural pesticides used on food crops. The study included just 166 patients who already had lung cancer, including 138 (83%) who were women, and compared their diets to standard U.S. references. The research has not been peer-reviewed and was only presented as an abstract at a medical conference, meaning we have no insights into the dataset, statistical analysis, methodology, or potential limitations of the work.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Numerous experts say the data is likely skewed by several things: First, the scientists didn’t actually measure pesticide exposure in patients’ food or blood, they simply estimated exposure based on patients’ reported diets. Second, the sample was not only small, but it was heavily skewed toward women, who are known to consume more fruits and vegetables than men, and generally face a higher risk of lung cancer, even among non-smokers. Third, the study was a cross-sectional analysis that compared exposure to pesticides and the outcome of cancer at the same time, however, it did so without any follow up, randomization, or intervention of any kind. Put plainly, they didn’t offer any way to establish a causal or time-based sequence between exposure and outcome. Finally, rather than comparing their data to a matched healthy cohort, the researchers simply compared their findings to national averages, which introduces various confounding variables. We can’t know whether things like exposure to air pollution, second hand smoke, genetics, or geographic location played a role in patients’ cancer outcomes.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Studies like these are meant to raise questions, not rewrite literal decades of science (the researchers themselves pressed the need for more work). The findings run counter to nearly all other published research regarding cancer outcomes in people who consume more fruits and vegetables. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis of 41 individual studies on 4.3 million people and over 41,000 cases of lung cancer with follow-ups of up to 25 years clearly shows that as people consume more fruits and vegetables, their risk of lung cancer goes down.