Epigenetic mayhem courtesy of glyphosate

September 2021

 

Epigenetics are defined as 'molecular factors and processes around DNA that regulate genome activity, independent of DNA sequence, and are. stable (during cell division)'. They regulate gene activity by turning specific genes on and off.

So far, at least five epigenetic processes have been identified, including chemical groups which attach to DNA or to the RNA expressed by the DNA, besides structural effects on the chromosome. Such processes are reversible, but can also be passed down through many generations.

The epigenome (totality of epigenetics) plays a key role in health and disease. Individuals (animals or plants) are the outcome of the integrated actions of all the epigenetic processes they have inherited or acquired during their life-time.

Known causes of epigenetic changes which are passed on to the next generation in humans include environmental toxins, nutrition, stress and smoking.

Scientists in the Center for Reproductive Biology in Washington State University have carried out an experiment which suggests that glyphosate herbicide could be a significant contributor to the current escalating incidence of chronic disease. If they're right, it means that we're still near the beginning of that wave of disease which will continue to surge for the next two generations and beyond, unless we do something about it.

*Note. Glyphosate has been around for decades, but it was only with the advent of GM herbicide-tolerant commodity crops, such as soya and oilseeds, in the late 1990s, that its use became exponential; it now accounts for 72% of global pesticide usage.

In the experiment, pregnant rats were administered glyphosate for a few days just when the foetal pups' reproductive cells were forming. (These are the cells which develop into the eggs or sperm which give rise to the next generation.)

Without any further glyphosate treatment, the offspring were bred for another two generations to produce grand offspring and great-grandoffspring of the original, transiently exposed, mothers.

Records were made of all diseases manifesting in the successive generations, and analyses of epigenetic markers in sperm cells were carried out.

It was found that glyphosate had negligible impacts on the first mothers. Their offspring exhibited minor effects but no major pathologies. After that, the problems became startling.

All subsequent generations had significantly increased levels of obesity and of conditions linked to reproductive difficulties such as prostate, testicular or ovarian disease, and birth and birthing abnormalities. "More than one-third of the second-generation mothers had unsuccessful pregnancies, with most of those affected dying" (Prof. Michael Skinner, corresponding author).

Kidney disease was much in evidence.

The grand offspring presented with multiple diseases, followed by a dramatic increase of multiple diseases in the great-grandoffspring.

Only one type of epigenetic marker was measured, but there were, nevertheless clear epigenetic 'signatures' linked to specific diseases.

Rats are a well-established model for investigating the toxic effects of chemicals in humans. This experiment demonstrated the principle that there's a potential for glyphosate to cause stress reactions in the developing foetus which become magnified in subsequent generations. It also established a clear epigenetic mechanism for both the diseases observed and the generational effects. However, the experiment wasn't designed to model real-life human exposure to glyphosate.

Comment. This might mean the level of harm observed arose from the experimental design. On the other hand, since modern man is subject to multiple pesticides and their adjuvants, all of which could be triggering epigenetic processes, the reality could be much worse.

How might what happened to the lab rats translate into humans?

This isn't an easy question to answer. Glyphosate is now so ubiquitous in the world that epidemiological studies have become impossible: there's simply no unexposed control group to compare pathologies. All we can realistically do is look for parallels between historic levels of glyphosate exposure and chronic disease (for example see [1]). Where there's a two-generation lag phase, any such study is even more problematic.

Death in childbirth is unusual today due to improved obstetric care in the event of complications, but underlying problems, such as infant abnormalities, might well be associated with glyphosate. The dramatic rise in obesity in the rats seems to correlate well with what's happened in the human population in recent decades. Prostate disease has become one of the most prominent pathologies in human males.

It should be noted that this isn't the first warning we've had. Studies published in 2018 found similar health effects in rats fed glyphosate [2]. Readers might remember the early, suppressed, Russian study published in 2009 which found "a total absence of a second generation" in rats fed GM soya (Ermakova).

Epigenetic effects of glyphosate could also be impacting catastrophically on wildlife. In one study on snails, which are used a biomarkers for ecosystem health, the creatures were found to have sudden marked DNA disruption at the 4th generation of glyphosate exposure, possibly attributable to epigenetic changes [3].

Current 'safety' testing of chemicals looks only for acute effects on directly exposed individuals. To quote Prof. Skinner 

"We need to change how we think about toxicology. Today worldwide, we only assess direct exposure toxicology; we don't consider subsequent generational toxicity. We do have some responsibility to our future generations".

OUR COMMENT

There's no reason to believe that glyphosate is the only culprit on the farm, and in the future, each successive wave of GM crop resistant to a different herbicide* may well deliver its own brand of epigenetic mayhem.

*So far, you can look forward to GM crops plus not only added glyphosate but also glufosinate, dicamba, 2,4-D, and isoxaflutole. And the list is growing.

We may now be witnessing individuals whose physiology is stressed by toxic reactions to glyphosate (and other pesticides) who are producing children whose physiology has become more stressed by the pre-existing stress, producing children whose physiology has become even more stressed by the cumulative existing stress ...

Think: P. D. James Children of Men?

It's time to challenge the chemical-cure-for-everything mindset..

Perhaps you could begin to encourage the government to fund some of our top scientific brains to research health promotion instead of high-tech 'cures' for all the diseases we're causing ourselves in the first place.


Background:

[1] U.S. PUBLIC HEALTH TRENDS AFTER GM - October 2013

[2] POISONING OUR GREAT-GRAND CHILDREN - November 2018

[3] FOUR GENERATIONS TO SNAIL ARMAGEDDON - June 2015


SOURCES:

• Glyphosate Causes Serious Multi-Generational Health Damage to Rats - New WSU Research, Sustainable Pulse, 23.04.19

• Glyphosate Causes Genetic Changes Leading to Increased Disease in Future Generations, Sustainable Pulse, 10.12.20

• Deepika Kubsad, et al., 2019, Assessment of Glyphosate Induced Epigenetic Transgenerational Inheritance of Pathologies and Sperm Epimutations: Generational Toxicology, Nature Scientific Reports, 23.04.19

• Millissia Ben Maamar, et al., 2020, Epigenome-wide association study for glyphosate induced transgenerational sperm DNA methylation and histone retention epigenetic biomarkers for disease, Epigenetics, 23.10.20

• I. V. Ermakova, 2009, Influence of soy with the gene EPSPS CP4 on the physiological state and reproductive functions of rats in the first two generations, Russian Academy of Natural Sciences

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