DIABETES LOW IN CUBA -- ORGANIC AGRICULTURE

www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826550.600-cuba-libre.html

Cuba libre

* 07 May 2008
* From New Scientist Print Edition.

Your feature on the health benefits of calorie reduction in Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet bloc (12 April, p 6) fails to consider a key variable. The Cuban food supply, as well as being restricted, also became organic.

You have reported a link between type 2 diabetes and pesticide residues in food (14 April 2007, p 16). Has the possibility been considered that the 51 per cent reduction in diabetes might be due, in part at least, to the absence of pesticide residues?
From issue 2655 of New Scientist magazine, 07 May 2008, page 23