Organic foods are considered healthier because it does not contain pesticides although its nutrition is not as high as the non-organic foods. But recently, studies have shown organic foods to improve health conditions, although this benefit is only seen in the fruit fly.
"We do not know why the condition flies fed organic food is much better than those without. Was probably require further study. Yet it seems this would be a good start to understanding the potential health benefits, especially in humans," said lead researcher Ria Chhabra , a student of Clark High School in Plano, Texas.
The study was conducted by Chhabra who got the idea after hearing her parents discussing whether to buy organic food for health reasons. Lucky one of his teachers, Dr.. Johannes H. Bauer is also an assistant professor of biology at Southern Methodist University, Texas willing to guide him.
"It is not there a high school kid has such a prominent position in the lab. But Ria has the energy and curiosity of a very large, it convinced me to give a chance on this project," said Bauer.
In this study, fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) were fed organic or conventional food or non-organic such as potatoes, soybeans, raisins and bananas. Each insect was given extracts from each of the food that has been independently tested to avoid mixing ingredients.
As a result, fruit flies fed organic food has better fertility, are more resistant to oxidative stress (associated with the formation of the disease), more resistant to hunger (indicating survival rate) and a longer life or a long life.
"Surprisingly, the majority of the tests we've done, the fruit flies fed organic food has better performance in tests than flies fed regular food," Bauer said as quoted from CBSNews, Friday (29/03/2013).
Nevertheless, in a study published in the journal PLoS One this Bauer admitted that the team was not sure whether organic food is also much healthier for humans.
Moreover, according to Bauer, the research team also found a negative or neutral results in a number of foods such as raisins. This means that the positive effects on health may be specific to certain organic foods only, not all of them.