Research Reveals Previously Unknown Pathway by which Glyphosate Wrecks Health

The more we learn about genetically engineered (GE) foods, the clearer the dangers become. I've warned you of the potential dangers of GE foods for many years now, as I was convinced that the artificial combining of plants with genes from wildly...

May 14, 2013 | Source: www.mercola.com | by Dr. Mercola

The more we learn about genetically engineered (GE) foods, the clearer the dangers become. I’ve warned you of the potential dangers of GE foods for many years now, as I was convinced that the artificial combining of plants with genes from wildly different kingdoms is bound to cause problems.

As the years roll on, such suspicions are becoming increasingly validated. In recent weeks, we’ve not only learned that GE corn is in no way comparable to natural corn in terms of nutrition, we’re also discovering the ramifications of dousing our crops with large amounts of glyphosate – the active ingredient in Monsanto’s broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup.

GE crops are far more contaminated with glyphosate than conventional crops, courtesy of the fact that they’re engineered to withstand extremely high levels of Roundup without perishing along with the weed.

A new peer-reviewed report authored by Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant, and a long time contributor to the Mercola.com Vital Votes Forum and Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has fortunately received quite a bit of mainstream media attention.

Their findings, along with the development of another breed of “gene silencing” crops, makes the need for labeling all the more urgent, and the advice to buy certified organic all the more valid.

How Glyphosate Worsens Modern Diseases

While Monsanto insists that Roundup is safe and “minimally toxic” to humans, Samsel and Seneff’s research tells a different story altogether. Their report, published in the journal Entropy, argues that glyphosate residues, found in most commonly consumed foods in the Western diet courtesy of GE sugar, corn, soy and wheat, “enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease.” According to the authors:

“Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body.”

The main finding of the report is that glyphosate inhibits cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes, a large and diverse group of enzymes that catalyze the oxidation of organic substances. This, the authors state, is “an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals.”