In a recent paper published in the journal Entropy, Dr. Stephanie Seneff and Anthony Samsel argue that the key ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, contributes to most of the diseases associated with a Western diet — everything from gastrointestinal disorders to mood swings, heart disease to diabetes.
Monsanto has long argued that glyphosate is perfectly safe for humans. That’s because glyphosate works by disrupting the shikimate pathway in a plant’s metabolism. Human metabolism does not have the shikamate pathway, so we are safe.
But are we? Did you know that you are mostly made up of microbial life? That the bacteria and microbes that live within your gut outnumber your own cells 10 to 1? Did you also know that these microbes which sustain you do have the shikimate pathway?
In her paper, Dr. Seneff argues that glyphosate interrupts your gut bacteria’s metabolic pathways the same way it does a plant’s.
Furthermore, it adversely affects our gut’s population of beneficial bacteria more dramatically than it does our gut’s population of pathogens. This allows the pathogens in our guts to overgrow, creating excess toxins.
Following the toxin trail…
As we learned from Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride in her amazing book, Gut and Psychology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Autism, Dyspraxia, A.D.D., Dyslexia, A.D.H.D., Depression, Schizophrenia, these excess toxins lead to inflammation. The inflammation wrecks our gut lining, creating a leaky gut.
The toxins escape into our bloodstream and disrupt neural pathways leading to mood swings, auto immune diseases, and digestive disorders. It can also lead to systemic low-grade inflammation, which cutting-edge research indicates as the culprit behind most chronic diseases like type 2 Diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.
Chronic inflammation falls below the threshold of perceived pain. You don’t think you feel sick, but a fire is quietly smoldering within you, upsetting the delicate balance among all of the major systems: endocrine, central nervous, digestive, and cardiovascular/respiratory. In a healthy body, these systems communicate with each another. With chronic inflammation, that communication becomes distorted.
Medical schools don’t teach much about the inflammatory effects of food, toxic chemicals, or EMF so the medical profession has been slow to appreciate the extent of the problem. “Researchers are linking inflammation to an ever-wider array of chronic illnesses,” reported Newsweek’s Anne Underwood in 2005. “Suddenly medical puzzles seem to be fitting together, such as why hypertension puts patients at increased risk of Alzheimer’s, or why rheumatoid-arthritis sufferers have higher rates of sudden cardiac death. They’re all connected on some fundamental level.”
(1)
Want to see how it’s all connected?
Watch the video below in which Dr. Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating, interviews Dr. Stephanie Seneff about exactly how glyphosate acts on our inner microbiome.
But, we’re not eating RoundUp!
While it’s true you’re not glugging down bottles of glyphosate-containing RoundUp or pouring it on your food like a condiment, you are eating plenty of glyphosate residues in your food — particularly if you’re eating foods made from RoundUp Ready genetically-modified (GMO) crops like sugar beets, corn, canola (rape), and soy.
Unfortunately, about 85% of the foods sold in grocery stores contain these GMOs.
[Glyphosate] is not included in government monitoring of pesticide residues in food. The only information available about contamination of food comes from research studies.
Monsanto’s studies of residues in food crops found glyphosate in lettuce over five months after treatment (the lettuce was planted four months after treatment). Monsanto also found glyphosate in barley over four months after treatment (the barley was planted one month after treatment).
“Significant residues,” according to the World Health Organization, have been identified from pre-harvest use of glyphosate on wheat (to dry out the grain). Bran contains between 2 and 4 times the amount on whole grains. Residues are not lost during baking.
(2)
In other words, significant amounts of glyphosate residues are routinely found on foods — even foods, like wheat, that are not GMO.
Dr. Seneff argues that these residues do have a cumulatively negative effect on the body, that the effect is “insidious” and “manifests slowly over time.” (3)
How can you avoid glyphosate residues in your food?
Unfortunately, because GMOs aren’t currently labeled in the U.S., you have no way of knowing whether or not you’re eating them. Also, many non-GMO foods are treated with glyphosate or grown in fields where glyphosate was used before planting. Therefore, there only a handful of sure-fire ways to avoid eating glyphosate residues:
1. Opt to buy single-ingredient certified organic food.
2. Choose Non-GMO Verfied labeled foods.
3. Grow your own open-pollinated, heirloom variety plants in non-RoundUp treated soil.
4. Know your farmer and ask pointed questions about his or her growing practices, then opt to support those farmers who do not user RoundUp and plant GMO-free crops.
2. http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/Roundup-Glyphosate-Factsheet-Cox.htm
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These type + similarly used chemicals should not even be available to the public at large . Even with certified training there is so much WE don’t understand or even know about long term build up + effects. Some worry about the Right to Bear Arms in the 2nd-A, with one person at a time using a firearm for good or bad. The effect is good or bad + is under the scrutiny of law, saving lives from evil people or good folks harmed by evil lawbreakers. But the plethora of chemicals in farms, businesses, homes + now ground water is an unseen specter of “evil” NOT under law after the fact, except illegal dumping. The 3-dimensional concept of the cause + potential effect seems out of most citizens + lawmakers/bureaucracies grasp for the future. Free-enterprise is great but peoples mindset of instant results bypasses REAL scrutiny to protect the consumers from companies that fail to be controlled in regulations afforded the food industry on the bases of contamination, health + safety. Drugs + chemicals have endless side-effects smart folks avoid at all costs. Those that don’t fear the danger are trusting that “someone” is watching out for them, like children do! Evidently there is so MUCH $$$ involved it’s hands off all the way around. America is OUR land, water + air as gifted to us were upon WE turn it over to succeeding generations, isn’t it right that We protect them from inadvertently harming them + the land they inherit?!!
Great article – another example of how exposure over time can lead to dramatic changes and dire ramifications. When you combine this with the fact that stress hits our probiotic cultures hard, how more children are losing out on probiotic innoculation thanks to Caesarians and formula, how we all miss out thanks to the decline in fermenting foods, you can see how something that they tell us doesn’t have a big effect ends up tipping the balance overall. Somehow they always seem to miss the big picture!
Reminds me why I love our organic homestead/farm, all the fermented purple kim chi I have in the basement, and the dandelions that dot our lawn! No roundup, please. The goats eat them. Thank you again for your great coverage of these food issues.
BTW, Kristen I would love to have you do a guest post on your fertility/pregnancy/first foods course at my family fitness blog. Let me know if you’d be interested.
Sarah, I have dandelions all over my lawn too!
They look pretty in the sunlight, and, most important, the bees love them.
The dandelion is the plant always featured as being destroyed in the Roundup adverts, yet, my Grandad used to make the most delicious Dandelion wine! This plant has many benefits, I believe it is good for the liver(?)., it’s lovely green leaves are far more resistant to slugs than lettuce leaves and so are very good
for salads. I add them to my soups and stews too, along with nettles and sorrel and various other herbs.
When I mow the flowers still grow back, and I am thinking of cultivating some in a special patch as well.
So many so called “weeds” have well documented benefits, and maybe some still to be discovered?
What a tragedy if we have sprayed them all out of existence?!
Do you remember “Flower Power”?
I suggest that we all grow as many flowers and weeds(?) as we can in our gardens everywhere, and window boxes and pots. At the very least
the bees will be happier.
Didn’t the asbestos industry used to say that asbestos was safe too?
Sure. Same thing with Agent Orange and DDT — also Monsanto’s creations.
Disturbing on so many levels. Sigh.
Remember to check to see if your community is having a local March Against Monsanto. They are all over the country on this Saturday (May 25th).
I also encourage everyone to watch this video. I watched it a few days ago…it is packed with information that we all really need to hear and pass along.
By definition, Organic labeled foods cannot be GMO or contain pesticides or herbicides like RoundUp, correct???
This is a post so many people need to read! I garden as organically as possible and try to make a lot of my own stuff, like bread. Then I know it’s not full or soy, corn etc, unless I put it there and get it from a trusted source! Keep renegading!
Signed up for the weekly update!
I just completed a paper for one of my university classes about genetically modified food. There is a lifetime feeding study (the first one ever conducted, previously all feeding studies were 90 days or less) by Séralini et. al (2012) that also laced some of the rat groups’ water with very low concentrations (levels considered “safe” in the U.S. and even allowed in the water supply) of Roundup and the rats were plagued with health problems and early death. I believe the study was the first one that used Roundup as a whole rather than glyphosate on it’s own. Roundup was found to be far worse than glyphosate on it’s own. And of course, the rats fed diets of 11-33% GM corn didn’t fare very well in the long term either.
It’s appalling that GM is allowed in the food supply without labelling, and even more appalling that the ones who need to prove the safety of the GM products are the GM manufacturers. Conflict of interest much?
I’m confused. I’ll accept the glyphosate->health link (I have no immediate opinion on the researcher or the journal Entropy, so I have no reason to trust or distrust them as a source). But isn’t glyphosate a chemical in RoundUp, not a chemical created by RoundUp-ready crops? So, why point the finger at RoundUp-ready crops, instead of the *use of RoundUp*?
Don’t get me wrong – I have a lot of problems with GM crops – but this isn’t one of them, because it’s not the GM crops that are the problem here.
Answer this question, and you have better argument: If the use of RoundUp were banned, would GM crops still pose a health risk *due to their glyphosate content*? If the answer is “none,” then you need to re-direct your focus.
Seems clear to me. It doesn’t seem to me that the focus of the article is on GM crops, but about the dangers of Round-up in food, as explained just below the video.
BT corn, a major Monsanto crop, produces it’s own internal Roundup. As a result, it is registered with the EPA as a pesticide. And considering all of the packaged and processed foods that this corn is found in…including the high fructose corn syrup, it’s downright scary.
Thanks so much for writing this…it’s a bit depressing because I thought buying food from farmers was okay if they didn’t spray ‘it’ but I never really considered the ground and how much they spray other crops that they then rotate each year. Thanks especially for the info on how it affects your gut. Sometimes I wonder why I have health problems and can’t figure it out…this could be one thing…
One more thing, would taking raw fermented foods help at all or is it pretty much just a bandaid?
Unfortunately… Entropy is one of those journals in the scientific world that us scientists have mixed feelings for. You see, there are truly magnificent journals that only allow the best of the best science through. And then there are the mid-level journals that are still very decent to be published in, that is, your science is still well done enough to be brought to the greater scientific community’s attention. Then there are the journals which are not great, sometimes they let science with weak basis through.
And then there are journals like Entropy. These journals you pay to have your work published in. That is, you’ve tried to convince everyone else to publish your work and it just is not happening so you take it to a journal like this and it’s pretty much a guaranteed thing.
As much as science as a whole wants to be removed from politics, some scientists do have an agenda and skew their data to match that agenda. I have not read the entire article yet (which is free to the public) but I see how and why it was probably published in a journal like this– the facts are weak and not well cited. Anyway, moral of the story is just be careful of what you believe point-blank.
this is such crap.
I was diagnosed with leaky gut four months ago. After changing my diet and cutting out all GMO, prossessed garbage I feel way better. Im not tired all the time, I dont feel sick and weak. My stomach no longer hurts! This is poisoning our bodies. It is real and time will reveal that! To those of you who think this is crap and weak facts. Let me tell you this. It is not. I am proof. I was sick, very sick. And the only change I made was my diet. Making sure to go all organic and finding farmers in our area to buy from. You know they use arsenic to plump up chickens? There is so much poison in our food. Hopefully the people who voted no will see that someday. You may not care what you put in your body. But you will if your diagnosed with something, change your diet and realize that was it all along!
man, why don’t these big corporations, gmos and insane psychopaths who run the show just leave everyone alone. They can do whatever they want, just leave us out of their bs. They go around conducting bs experiments, destroying nature and enviornment and then ask us to help them with global warming. I mean, either these dips*its do not understand their own science or they have gone insane with power.
I don’t think Roundup should be used anywhere NEAR as much as it is, but I’m grateful that it was there when I needed to get rid of a huge patch of poison ivy – I’m VERY reactive to it (ever had it in your eyes? I don’t recommend it!) and my dog kept bringing traces of the oils in on his fur. Tried ripping it out, smothering it, boiling vinegar, soap, and an pricey “all-natural” herbicide, but it just grew back. The research we did indicated Roundup was less toxic than Brush-B-Gon (not that that’s saying much), the other recommendation, so we decided to try that first and thankfully it worked. I think Roundup should ONLY be used as a last resort of desperation for plants that are an actual danger, not for convenience.
Don’t use it, I make my own weed killer.
Never! I eat my weeds 🙂
I don’t usually use glyphosphate anywhere, but I had a very invasive wisteria with inaccessible roots under my woodshed taking over my vege patch two years ago, so on the advice of a friend I painted the smallest amount of topical weedkiller on some of the leaves. The damned wisteria is still alive, but I’m only just beginning to be able to grow beans on that side of the shed again – so much for topical. I won’t be using it again.
Excellent well written article. . Do you know of a list of non GMO foods that have been contaminated by glyphosate. I think that would be very helpful to everyone. I would like to know personally, because while I eat a very clean diet, mostly organic, there are a few vegetables I buy conventional mainly because I can’t get them organic. Thanks.
Thank God for all of you! Pure food, air, and water is our right as human beings! This is nothing but genocide to our species if we let this continue. The Big Farmer will see the light when we don’t buy their poison. Say no to GMO!
I am a 62 year old male who has schizophrenia diabetes weight and got problems. Is there such a thing as roundup-resistant probiotics.
Aloha From the Big Island Of Hawaii,
I want to thank you so much for this well thought out and incredible information all condensed into this great article. I have shared this article with many of my friends and family members who also care about this issue and we collectively are learning and focusing more and more energy on topics such as this because of the huge impact this has on both our health and the world’s health. The more we communicate and teach each other, the more informed and thoughtful decisions we can make. By not buying known GMO foods we can collectively and effectively snuff these monster companies who are poisoning the world and put them out of business. If those companies know that we, the consumer will not buy, then they will be forced to change their ingredients and provide their packages with the Non-Gmo stamps. So, I am so grateful for the very pointed information that you offer in this article. I did not know about the Shikimate pathways, but I do make and consume kefir water for my gut health or some call it my microbiome 🙂 I had read the information that our guts are basically being eaten away by the glyphosates in GMO grown foods. That was shocking and eye-opening. Anyone who reads this, please send this information to all your contacts so that we can be aware and alert about our food purchases. The laws of cause and effect will come around once the consumers know! Those companies who care nothing for human life and health will be put out of business. Times are changing, but sometimes it is slower than we like. We can all make a difference in our own lives by refraining from buying known GMO foods. Let’s get healthy together 🙂 Thank you again, Kristin. GREAT ARTICLE!!! I will keep passing it along!
Mahalo Nui Loa,
Sincerely, Kristi