Study linking herbicide to serious disease Tactical Investor

Editor: Vladimir Bajic | Tactical Investor

Study linking herbicide to serious disease

Scientists from King’s College London, whose findings were published in the journal, Nature, earlier this month, said their tests used cutting-edge technology to demonstrate that “extremely low doses” of the herbicide administered to rats through their drinking water had caused “non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)” over a two-year period.

NAFLD can lead to more serious liver disease such as cirrhosis and increases the risk of other illnesses including diabetes, heart attacks and strokes.

“The study is unique in that it is the first to show a causative link between consumption of Roundup at a real-world environmental dose and a serious disease condition,” the report said.

“Metabolomics and proteomics allows detection of hundreds or even thousands of molecules at the same time, which is much greater than other techniques. So we could clearly see what is happening in the organs,” Mesnage said.

“The dose of glyphosate from the Roundup administered was thousands of times below what is permitted by regulators worldwide,” it said.

“Regulators worldwide accept toxicity studies in rats as indicators of human health risks. Therefore, the results of this latest study may have serious consequences for human health, and thus warrant careful consideration by regulatory agencies and further investigation by toxicologists.”

“The higher the dose, the bigger the effect … If you really want to show the effects of the chemical, you have to give the different aged animals different levels of it, and you have to show ages are affected differently.” Full Story

Study linking herbicide to serious disease Especially From Roundup

In the nearly 20 years of intensifying exposure, scientists have been documenting the health consequences of Roundup and glyphosate in our food, in the water we drink, in the air we breathe and where our children play.

They’ve found that people who are sick have higher levels of glyphosate in their bodies than healthy people.

They’ve also found the following health problems which they attribute to exposure to Roundup and/or glyphosate:

ADHD: In farming communities, there’s a strong correlation between Roundup exposure and attention deficit disorder (ADHD), likely due to glyphosate’s capacity to disrupt thyroid hormone functions.

Alzheimer’s disease: In the lab, Roundup causes the same type of oxidative stress and neural cell death observed in Alzheimer’s disease. And it affects CaMKII, an enzyme whose dysregulation has also been linked to the disease.

Anencephaly (birth defect): An investigation into neural tube defects among babies born to women living within 1,000 meters of pesticide applications showed an association for glyphosate with anencephaly, the absence of a major portion of the brain, skull and scalp that forms during embryonic development.

Autism: Glyphosate has a number of known biological effects that align with the known pathologies associated with autism.

Birth defects: Roundup and glyphosate can disrupt the Vitamin A (retinoic acid) signalling pathway, which is crucial for normal fetal development. The babies of women living within one kilometre of fields sprayed with glyphosate were more than twice as likely to have birth defects according to a study from Paraguay.

Brain cancer: In a study of children with brain cancer compared with healthy children, researchers found that if either parent had been exposed to Roundup during the two years before the child’s birth, the chances of the child developing brain cancer doubled.

Breast cancer: Glyphosate induces human breast cancer cells growth via estrogen receptors. The only long-term animal study of glyphosate exposure produced rats with mammary tumours and shortened life-spans.

Cancer: House-to-house surveys of 65,000 people in farming communities in Argentina where Roundup is used, known there as the fumigated towns, found cancer rates two to four times higher than the national average, with increases in breast, prostate and lung cancers.

Celiac disease and gluten intolerance: Fish exposed to glyphosate develop digestive problems that are reminiscent of celiac disease. There are parallels between the characteristics of celiac disease and the known effects of glyphosate. These include imbalances in gut bacteria, impairment in enzymes involved with detoxifying environmental toxins, mineral deficiencies and amino acid depletion. Full Story

Impacts of glyphosate-based herbicides on disease resistance and health of crops

Based on experimental data from laboratory and field, numerous authors have raised concern that exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) may pre-dispose crops to damage by microbial pathogens. In this review, we distinguish and evaluate two principal pathways by which GBHs may affect the susceptibility of crops to disease: pathway 1—via disruptions to rhizosphere microbial ecology, and pathway 2—via restriction of nutrients to crops.

We conclude that GBHs have the potential to undermine crop health in a number of ways, including: (i) impairment of the innate physiological defences of glyphosate-sensitive (GS) cultivars by interruption of the shikimic acid pathway; (ii) impairment of physiological disease defences has also been shown to occur in some glyphosate-resistant (GR) cultivars, despite their engineered resistance to glyphosate’s primary mode of action; (iii) interference with rhizosphere microbial ecology (in particular, GBHs have the potential to enhance the population and/or virulence of some phytopathogenic microbial species in the crop rhizosphere); and finally, (iv) the as yet incompletely elucidated reduction in the uptake and utilisation of nutrient metals by crops.

Future progress will best be achieved when growers, regulators and industry collaborate to develop products, practices and policies that minimise the use of herbicides as far as possible and maximise their effectiveness when used while facilitating optimised food production and security. Full Story

Study linking herbicide to serious disease fuels debate