Try This – 2 Big Shares on Pesticides and Cancer

Try This community, today I’m diving into two important breaking studies. 

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how cancer rates are higher than ever among young people. The question is why?

While we might not have all the answers yet, there’s something we really need to pay attention to: pesticides.

Let’s get into it.

Study #1: Are Pesticides Driving an Increase in Colon Cancer?

Colorectal cancer rates in adults under 50 have doubled since the late 1980s. Today, about one in five diagnoses happens in someone under 55. We already know part of the story—ultra-processed foods, poor sleep, metabolic dysfunction. But those factors may not explain the full story.

A new study published in Nature Medicine points to something else worth paying attention to: an herbicide called picloram.

Hat tip to agronomy consultant Sam Knowlton, whose X thread is what put this paper on my radar and whose breakdown of the data is better than anything I could write. A lot of what follows is a summary of his breakdown. 

In the study, researchers looked at DNA methylation patterns—think of them as molecular “fingerprints” of lifetime exposure—in tumor samples. They found that younger colorectal cancer patients had a significantly stronger picloram signature than older patients. This pattern held across multiple patient groups.

One wild detail worth pausing on: The younger patients in this study were actually less likely to be obese than the older ones, not more. That cuts against the assumption that early-onset cancer is mostly a metabolic story. Something else is going on in these younger cases.

They also zoomed out and looked at real-world data. Over two decades, US counties with higher picloram use had higher rates of early-onset colorectal cancer, even after adjusting for income, education, and other pesticides.

What makes this particularly compelling is the timing. Picloram came into widespread use in the 1960s. Today’s younger patients were exposed during childhood, when our biology is more sensitive to environmental inputs.

And here's where it gets unsettling.

The researchers used a separate molecular signature to estimate how old each tumor actually was, independent of how old the patient was at diagnosis. When they sorted patients by tumor age instead of patient age, the picloram link got stronger, not weaker. The implication is that some of these "early-onset" cancers in 40-year-olds are actually old tumors that started growing decades earlier. A 45-year-old getting diagnosed today may have started this disease at 22, which flips the whole framing. There may be no such thing as early-onset cancer. Just late-detected cancer that started young.

And here's the part that should concern everyone, not just farmers: Picloram is among the most persistent and mobile pesticides currently registered. It's been detected in groundwater in at least 10 states, and once it reaches aquifers, it resists degradation. Communities drawing well water downstream may have been exposed for decades, often without knowing it.

This is just one study, but it’s the first time molecular, ecological, and temporal evidence have all pointed to the same potential environmental driver of one of the steepest cancer trends in modern epidemiology.

Important caveat: This is correlation, not causation. What makes it worth paying attention to is that the researchers triangulated three different lines of evidence that all pointed in the same direction.

I’ll share more tips on reducing our risk later, but it’s worth mentioning that a reverse osmosis water filter has been shown to dramatically reduce the levels of pesticides in drinking water.

Study #2: Pesticide Exposure Linked to 150% Higher Cancer Risk in Major Study

Another new study just put a number on what happens when "safe" pesticides combine in the real world: an average 152 percent higher cancer risk in the most exposed areas, even when none of the individual chemicals is classified as a carcinogen.

The study, covered by ScienceDaily and published in Nature Health, looked at 31 commonly used pesticides across Peru. Individually, none of these chemicals is classified as a carcinogen. They’ve all passed traditional safety standards.

But instead of studying them one by one, researchers mapped where these chemicals showed up together in soil, water, and air—and compared that to over 150,000 cancer cases.

What they found was striking.

Their map revealed 436 pesticide-associated cancer hot spots. The relative risk of cancer in these hot spots averaged 2.52, with some areas climbing as high as 9.38.

Translation: People living in the most exposed regions had between two and nine times the cancer risk of the general population.

Then they went deeper. They took liver tissue from people living in these hot spots and compared it to liver tissue from patients in France, Taiwan, and Turkey. The Peruvian samples carried a distinct molecular signature pointing to non-genotoxic carcinogenesis.

That phrase matters.

It means these chemicals are not directly damaging DNA. They are disrupting the regulatory programs that keep liver cells acting like liver cells, which over time pushes those cells toward an unstable state where cancer becomes more likely.

Here's the part that should change how we think about chemical safety. The standard regulatory approach tests one ingredient at a time. This study suggests that approach systematically misses what happens when multiple "safe" chemicals show up in the same body, in the same water supply, on the same food, year after year. Individual safety thresholds may not mean much when real-world exposure is a cocktail.

Important caveat: Just like the above study, this study shows correlation, not causation, and the geographic context involves specific indigenous and peasant communities with overlapping risk factors. The authors are up front about this. But the molecular signature they found in liver tissue gives the geography a mechanistic backbone, which is what makes the study worth paying attention to.

I definitely don’t want today’s newsletter to feel like doom and gloom. Rather, I hope it’s a call to raise awareness around what could be driving cancer rates in our modern world. 

The more people know, the more they speak up, and the more we can change policy around toxins in our environment. 

In the meantime, here are what I believe to be five high-impact ways to reduce pesticide exposure: 

1. Use a reverse osmosis water filter, which has been shown to actually reduce your exposure to things like pesticides.
   

2. Buy organic when you can. You don’t always have to buy organic produce, but when possible, it can make a difference. Some foods carry higher residue than others, such as strawberries, apples, grapes, spinach, cherries, and berries. You can find more about what foods to buy organic here. Frozen organic food is also a great option if you can’t find fresh.
   

3. Also, wash your produce thoroughly. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but if you have the time, wash your produce in water and baking soda, and then rinse.
   

4. Be mindful of what you use in your yard and garden. Avoid lawn pesticides or herbicides near your home when possible. And take your shoes off to prevent tracking chemicals into the house.
   

5. Don’t ignore dust. It’s a hidden source of exposure. Pesticides don’t just stay on food. They build up in household dust and quietly increase your exposure over time. The fix is simple. Use a HEPA vacuum, wet mop floors, and wipe down surfaces regularly, especially in the kitchen and anywhere kids spend time.

That’s it. Small changes can make a big impact.

See you next week for more shares. 

Much love,
Dhru Purohit 

The information in this newsletter is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice; please consult a qualified healthcare professional before making any health-related decisions.