"... reductions in microbial diversity are directly associated with altered functionality of the gut microbiome, and are thought to represent a major instigating factor behind the growing global epidemic of chronic, non-communicable, metabolic disease. Such metabolic disorders include irritable bowel syndrome, type-2 diabetes, obesity, atherosclerosis, and several types of cancer." (Daisley et al.)Regulators, manufacturers of glyphosate-based herbicides, and suppliers of glyphosate-tolerant GM seed all maintain there are no human health concerns with glyphosate exposure when the products are used as intended. This assurance includes the glyphosate residues in our diet.
Let's hope they're right because glyphosate is the most frequently detected pesticide in food. Also, testing has revealed traces of glyphosate and its breakdown produce, AMPA, in the urine of up to 90% of farmers in one US State, up to 95% of the general public (including children) in America, 30% of babies less than one month old in one US State, and up to 50% of people in Europe. These figures suggest there's a constant daily exposure to glyphosate from multiple sources, and that there may no longer be any unexposed population to use as a comparator.
The approval of glyphosate is based on the absence of acute toxic effects plus the assumption that because the herbicide disrupts an enzyme essential to all plants but entirely absent from animals, it can't possibly harm humans.
Researchers have pointed out that the major source of our exposure to glyphosate is residues in food and water, while the primary route of elimination of the herbicide from our bodies is in faeces. This makes our digestive system the part of our body exposed to the highest concentrations of the herbicide. Moreover, although glyphosate isn't directly active in human cells, many of the microbes in our gut depend on the very enzyme which glyphosate targets: these could certainly be harmed.
Broad measurements of, for example, gut microbe sensitivity to glyphosate, or the prevalence of different types of bugs known to be linked to health or disease, don't reveal any obvious problems. However, recent research using up-to-date, more sophisticated, analytical methods is telling a rather different story:
- A universal finding seems to be that commercial formulations, which have additives to make the glyphosate more toxic to plants, also make glyphosate more toxic to microbes. Because the additives vary between formulations* any research based on a single brand name or on pure glyphosate can't be generalised to any other version of glyphosate-based contaminant in our diet. * In 2010, there were 750 kinds of glyphosate-based herbicide on the market in the US alone. Now, there are probably thousands world-wide
- One study based on chemical glyphosate identified at least four different enzymes which perform the same role in different species of gut microbe but have different sensitivities to the herbicide. It concluded that 54 percent of species of the bugs in the human gut, or up to 25 percent of the total, are negatively affected by glyphosate.
- Rat and human studies of gut microbes have found that, besides the known negative affect on the ability to form essential proteins, it seems glyphosate can be toxic to energy production, and can generate reactive stress chemicals which have been linked to cancer and other diseases.
- Because it blocks a key biochemical pathway, glyphosate causes the accumulation of 'shikimate'. Shikimate can be beneficial in small doses but in high doses has been linked to cancer.
- And, as if all this wasn't enough, it seems glyphosate can imbalance our gut microbes by boosting certain species which are able to use the herbicide as food.
OUR COMMENT
When all's said and done, epidemiological surveys may be the only thing available to tell us what damage glyphosate-based herbicides (and the staple GM crops dependent on their use) are really doing to us. The findings of these so far haven't been too encouraging [2,3].In fact, lack of regulatory independence, care and common-sense may have dug our health into a hole it will be very difficult to climb back out of.
HINT: The sooner regulators can be persuaded (by you) to look for and at the evidence of harm from glyphosate-based herbicides, the sooner we can correct our glyphosate-damaged health.
Background
[1] A TALE OF MICROBES, YOUR GUT AND DISEASE - December 2019
[2] HOW MUCH DISEASE IS ROUNDUP CAUSING? - December 2014
[3] WHAT GLYPHOSATE HAS ACHIEVED IN ARGENTINA - June 2018
SOURCES:
- Carey
Gillam, New glyphosate papers point to "urgency" for more
research on chemical impact to human health, USRTK, 23.11.20
- A.
H. C. van Bruggen, et al., October 2021, Indirect Effects of the
Herbicide Glyphosate on Plant, Animal and Human Health Through its Effects
on Microbial Communities, Frontiers in Environmental Science
- Glyphosate
and Roundup disturb gut microbiome and blood biochemistry at doses that
regulators claim to be safe, GM Watch 27.01.21
- Robin
Mesnage, et al., January 2021, Use of Shotgun Metagenomics and
Metabolomics to Evaluate the Impact of Glyphosate or Roundup MON 52276 on
the Gut Microbiota and Serum Metabolome of Sprague-Dawley Rats,
Environmental Health Perspectives
- Brendan
A. Daisley, et al., 2021, Deteriorating microbiomes in
agriculture - the unintended effects of pesticides on microbial life,
Microbiome Research Reports
- Lyydia
Leino, et al., 2020, Classification of the glyphosate target
enzyme (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase) for assessing
sensitivity of organisms to the herbicide, Journal of Hazardous
Materials
- Patrick Holden, Are glyphosate-based herbicides poisoning us and the environment? Chemicals in Agriculture, 5.02.21
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