{"id":29155,"date":"2021-04-30T00:01:16","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T04:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=29155"},"modified":"2021-04-29T18:50:07","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T22:50:07","slug":"research-shows-adverse-impacts-of-glyphosate-on-the-human-gut-microbiome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/04\/research-shows-adverse-impacts-of-glyphosate-on-the-human-gut-microbiome\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Shows Adverse Impacts of Glyphosate on the Human Gut Microbiome"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

(Beyond Pesticides<\/em>, April 30, 2021)\u00a0A bioinformatics tool developed by researchers from the University of Turku in Finland<\/a> indicates that \u201c54% of species in the core human gut microbiome are sensitive to glyphosate.\u201d This tool may help predict which microbes in the human gut could be negatively affected by exposure to the ubiquitous herbicide. Because damage to the gut biome is linked to a variety of diseases, this information could prove critical in recognition of the role(s) glyphosate may play in the development of human diseases. Published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials<\/em>, the researchers\u2019 paper states<\/a>, \u201cThe widespread use of glyphosate may have a strong effect on gut microbiomes as well as on human health.\u201d Beyond Pesticides has long reported on the relationship between glyphosate and human health, including potential effects on the human gut microbiome<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

Used in multiple herbicide formulations, glyphosate<\/a> has become widely known as the active ingredient in Bayer\/Monsanto\u2019s Roundup\u00ae, the most-used herbicide worldwide. The pervasiveness of glyphosate-based herbicide (GBH) use in agriculture, and of Roundup in particular, is due largely to their pairing with genetically engineered (GE) seeds for soy, canola, and corn crops. In many regions, these GE seeds \u2014 engineered to resist the glyphosate that is then applied to the crop \u2014 dominate.<\/p>\r\n

Farmers have been persuaded by industry that their crop plants will be protected from applications of the herbicide, and that competing weeds will be taken down; for a couple of decades, this more-or-less worked. But more recently, and inevitably, as so much of the agricultural landscape has been drenched in GBHs, weeds are rapidly developing resistance to glyphosate<\/a>.\u00a0This has not dampened industry\u2019s enthusiasm for these products; rather, companies are\u00a0doubling down on chemical solutions<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

Very recently, in covering a Tufts University scientific literature analysis, Beyond Pesticides wrote<\/a>: \u201cAlmost five decades of extensive glyphosate use has put animal, human, and environmental health at risk. . . . The chemical\u2019s ubiquity threatens\u00a093% of all U.S. endangered species<\/a>, with specific alterations [in]\u00a0microbial gut composition<\/a>.\u201d In June 2020, we wrote:<\/a> \u201cGut microbiota plays a crucial role in lifelong digesti[ve], immune, and central nervous system regulation, as well as other bodily functions. . . . With prolonged exposure to various environmental contaminants [such as glyphosate or other pesticides], critical . . . changes may occur in the gut microbes, influencing adverse health outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Glyphosate\u2019s mode of action \u2014 the subject of this research \u2014 is this: it targets and inactivates an important enzyme in what is called the \u201cshikimate [metabolic] pathway\u201d in plants. That enzyme is EPSPS (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase), which synthesizes three amino acids, phenylalanine,\u00a0tyrosine, and tryptophan, essential to building proteins. This pathway is not found in animal cells, and so, does not exist as a direct vulnerability to glyphosate in human cells \u2014 thus, claims that glyphosate has no health impacts on humans.<\/p>\r\n

There is ample evidence that this industry claim is false, not least among which are:<\/p>\r\n