Roundup and Gut Health......this is REALLY interesting.

[Polly]

Hi Everyone!

Apparently there is a class action lawsuit underway in CA that accuses Monsanto of false advertising with regard to its Roundup product.

The lawsuit asserts that Roundup can negatively affect human gut health, specifically by altering the gut microbiome. The lawsuit claims that Roundup's label indicates the enzyme targeted by its product does not target humans. Monsanto says "Roundup targets an enzyme found only in plants and not in humans or animals".

Well, listen to this!! The enzyme being targeted by Roundup is called EPSP synthase (AKA 3-phosphoshikimate 1-carboxyvinyltransferase) and is found in humans.....in the microbiota that reside in our intestinal tracts. It is partly responsible for immunity activation and helps our gut and brain communicate with each other. EPSP synthase is considered to be a beneficial microbe enzyme that produces neurometabolites that act as either as neurotransmitters or modulators of neurotransmission.

I am not as much of a believer in the smoking gun as Zizzle is (LOL), but isn't this interesting? We know that we MCers have altered gut microbia, and I have always believed that a major part of my disease is poor communication between the brain and gut, resulting in altered motility, among other things. Also, over the years I believe there has been a notable increase in GI disease in this country, and it would make sense that it could be at least partly related to something as ubiquitous as Roundup.

Polly

[Gigi]

I did not know about the lawsuit but I have read this about roundup. I could not agree more that this is potentially a huge piece of the puzzle as to what is going on that so many people have so many digestive issues. I hope they get the socks sued off of them; if for nothing more than to spread the truth that roundup is poison and if you can't see anything else wrong with gmo crops then at least see that genetically altering them so that they can be bathed in roundup and survive means that the gmo food you eat comes with a very (un)healthy serving of roundup along with it.

Gigi

[tex]

While I can certainly see that if that particular enzyme is as important to gut health as is claimed (in your description, and presumably in the lawsuit), then their product might indeed cause human health issues, Monsanto's attorneys will almost certainly argue that their label is correct (that the product does not target humans), because gut bacteria are obviously not humans. So if the essence of the lawsuit is false labeling, I would think that Monsanto would have a good chance of prevailing. It's going to be difficult to prove in court that gut bacteria are humans. Or am I looking at this wrong?

As I have pointed out many times, we can live without gut bacteria. We do so virtually every time we take a broad-spectrum oral antibiotic. So they can hardly be considered to be human, or even important, let alone essential, to our health. I'm not trying to defend their product here, I'm just describing why they may have a good defense.

Still, they may have their work cut out for them if the plaintiff's attorneys can prove that virtually everyone has those bacteria in their gut.

Love,
Tex

[Polly]

Tex, I agree....this should be a very interesting lawsuit!

Love,

Polly

[Lilja]

Hi,

This Swedish inspirator was born 48 years ago, without arms and legs. The article states that his condition is due to the fact that his mother was exposed to pesticides during the early period of pregnancy. The only weedkiller we had 48 years ago that I know of, is Roundup.

The pesticide that his mother had been exposed to in an early stage of the pregnancy had fatal consequences.
(Plantegiften moren hadde vært utsatt for i en tidlig fase av svangerskapet, hadde fått fatale konsekvenser).

http://www.vl.no/l%C3%B8ftet-seg-til-et ... iv-1.51353
http://malbevisst.no/inspirerende-perso ... andersson/

Lilia

[tex]

Lilia,

Glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) was discovered by a Monsanto Chemist in 1970. It took several years after that before Monsanto was able to bring the product to market.

The person you are posting about was born almost 10 years before Roundup was even available. The term "pesticides" includes everything from weedkillers to rat poisons. There were many, many pesticides available 50 years ago, and some of them (that are no longer available) were very dangerous, such as the organophosphates. If I had to make a guess, I would guess that one of the organophosphates might have been responsible for the birth defects you posted about, because their vapors could be absorbed through the skin or in the lungs, and they traveled systemically in the body to cause neurological damage. But that's just a wild guess because there are certainly other possibilities.

Roundup could not have been responsible though, because it was not even available.

Tex

[Lilja]

Tex,

You are right.
I now have found that the name of the product in Sweden was Hormoslyr (Agent Orange).

Lilia

[tex]

Ah yes, the chemical that was used by the shipload by the U. S. military to defoliate the jungle in Viet Nam. And our government pretends to be opposed to chemical warfare.

Tex

[Zizzle]

I disagree that we can live without gut microbes for several reasons:

1. Broad spectrum antibiotics are not capable of killing ALL gut microbes. That's why we have I infections like C-diff, among many other drug resistant GI bugs. We are entering the "post-antibiotic era" as we speak, so the gut microbes are winning.

2. GI bacteria do part of our digestive processing and produce necessary enzymes, vitamins, etc. Yes, in the short term their abcense may not kill you, but eventually your digestion would be seriously affected.

3. Microbe free mice in labs eventually develop lupus-like autoimmune diseases, so gut microbes are important for maintaining self tolerance.

4. We are organisms composed of half bacteria, half human cells. You could not possibly eradicate all the bacteria on ones body even if you tried to kill the gut bacteria.

Therefore I accept that we must live with gut bacteria, preferably in harmony. The timing of GMOs and widespread use of roundup coincides perfectly with the start of our current autoimmune/autism epidemic - early 1990s. Good enough smoking gun for me.

[Zizzle]

Good article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/hea ... e24822224/

I'm not sure what's worse, glyphosate throughout the food supply, or animals raised on antibiotics (plus glyphosate in their GMO feed). I say both are the cause of our current wave of health woes.

Bienenstock is one of the several international scientists who contributed to a recent paper, published in the Annals of Medicine, that suggests our modern, urban lifestyle may be limiting our environmental exposure to an important diversity of micro-organisms. They believe the kinds of microbes we come in contact with, as early as in the womb and into our first years of life, are critical for normal immune development. A variety of factors tied to modernity – including Caesarean births, formula-feeding, a lack of green space in cities, inadequate physical activity and the use of antibiotics – mean many of us aren’t coming in contact with the broad spectrum of micro-organisms that previous generations did. This could explain the rise of chronic inflammatory disorders in urbanized parts of the world, the paper says.

“Is there a perfect gut microbiome? … And can you improve it by taking probiotics? Those are questions that are being very definitely asked, and there is no final answer as of yet,” says Dr. John Bienenstock, a distinguished professor of pathology and molecular medicine at McMaster University. ....

The solution, however, is more complicated than simply identifying “beneficial” bugs and re-introducing them into our lives. Researchers are long past viewing micro-organisms as “good guys and bad guys,” Bienenstock says. Rather, the microbiome is now understood to be a complex and bustling community, where even potentially disease-causing strains can be useful neighbours and friendly ones can turn against us.

“It’s the diversity that counts. The more different types of bugs that live together happily and communicate, the healthier you are,” he says. ....

[tex]

1. Broad spectrum antibiotics are not capable of killing ALL gut microbes. That's why we have I infections like C-diff, among many other drug resistant GI bugs.

That's why physicians who understand antibiotics use appropriate combinations of antibiotics when the chips are down (such as when doing "dirty" abdominal surgery), so that they don't miss any bacteria. Poor antibiotic choices or improper usage, results in missed or partial bacteria kills.

We are entering the "post-antibiotic era" as we speak, so the gut microbes are winning.

I'm not sure they're winning . . . isn't a better way of expressing it — we're losing?

2. GI bacteria do part of our digestive processing and produce necessary enzymes, vitamins, etc.

That's all hype promoted by bacteria-huggers and probiotic magnates. LOL. Bacteria produce those nutrients for their own benefit (because they can't survive without them). They certainly don't produce them for our benefit. We get the leftovers.

Yes, in the short term their abcense may not kill you, but eventually your digestion would be seriously affected.

You must be aware of some science that I am unaware of. On what do you base that claim?

3. Microbe free mice in labs eventually develop lupus-like autoimmune diseases, so gut microbes are important for maintaining self tolerance.

Microbe-free mice are so inbred and generally screwed up that they are a walking bag of diseases waiting to happen. They are so far removed from reality that they are irrelevant to this issue.

4. We are organisms composed of half bacteria, half human cells. You could not possibly eradicate all the bacteria on ones body even if you tried to kill the gut bacteria.

That's simply not true. Human cells are human, and bacteria cells are bacterial. We are not hybrids. Humans totally devoid of bacteria would still retain all of their characteristics. Bacteria are not an essential part of the human genome. Bacteria are totally separate and distinct from the human genome.

Just because we are loaded with bacteria does not mean that our DNA has become infused with bacteria DNA (as if we have become some sort of human GMO). And while removing all those bacteria might significantly reduce the weight we have to carry around all day, it would not significantly change our physical dimensions.

And as far as kill rates go, consider this analogy. When a farmer has a field that grows up with weeds during a wet spell, so that the crop production will be ruined for all practical purposes unless he rescues it, if he knows what he is doing, he will use a combination of weedkillers (not just one), and he will kill every last weed in the field. Those who use a single weedkiller will have the same problem as the doctors you describe — they will get only a partial kill, and possibly add to the risk of pesticide resistance in the surviving weeds.

You know, looking back at history, as I recall, Roundup was not the only product that rose to popularity in the early 1990s. Many, many new food additives were added to the approved list, many, many new medicatons were introduced (especially many antipsychotic/antidepressant/antianxiety type mediations). And many other chemicals were approved for various industrial and agricultural (and household) uses.

If all it takes to convince you that a product is implicated as a cause of a medical issue is a "smoking gun" and a coincidental timeline, consider this:

This was the same period of time in which the cell phone and the laptop computer began their meteoric rise to popularity. The electromagnetic fields that surround these products have been thoroughly investigated with regard to the possibility that they might cause brain cancer. But that's rather shortsighted, isn't it? Maybe cellphones don't affect the brain. Maybe they affect the enteric nervous system (aka the "gut brain") instead.

And where are laptops held? Why in the lap, of course. And when you consider all the energy consumed by laptop computers in the early years especially, where did all that energy go? The batteries (and the bottom of the computers) became uncomfortably hot after a short period of use. Much of that energy went into the electromagnetic fields surrounding the screen and other components of the devices. The screens were aimed generally at the users gut. What did all that electromagnetic energy do to users' guts and their enteric nervous system? No one knows, because as far as I'm aware, no one ever bothered to investigate.

Farmers are exposed to Roundup at levels that are many thousands of times higher than the miniscule amounts found in food (and of course they also eat the same food as everyone else) and yet there are no known epidemics of farmer (or farm family) autoimmune/autism issues. Or am I overlooking something?

Tex

[brandy]

bacteria-huggers and probiotic magnates

ROFLMAO

[Zizzle]

This was the same period of time in which the cell phone and the laptop computer began their meteoric rise to popularity. The electromagnetic fields that surround these products have been thoroughly investigated with regard to the possibility that they might cause brain cancer. But that's rather shortsighted, isn't it? Maybe cellphones don't affect the brain. Maybe they affect the enteric nervous system (aka the "gut brain") instead.

And where are laptops held? Why in the lap, of course. And when you consider all the energy consumed by laptop computers in the early years especially, where did all that energy go? The batteries (and the bottom of the computers) became uncomfortably hot after a short period of use. Much of that energy went into the electromagnetic fields surrounding the screen and other components of the devices. The screens were aimed generally at the users gut. Shocked What did all that electromagnetic energy do to users' guts and their enteric nervous system? No one knows, because as far as I'm aware, no one ever bothered to investigate.

I could not agree with you more about the electronic devices and electromagnetic radiation. If they can prevent monarch butterflies from flying, imagine how they screw up the communication between our gut microbes.[/quote]

[Zizzle]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3975390/

Abstract
The gut microbiota plays a number of important roles including digestion, metabolism, extraction of nutrients, synthesis of vitamins, prevention against pathogen colonization, and modulation of the immune system. Alterations or changes in composition and biodiversity of the gut microbiota have been associated with many gastrointestinal tract (GIT) disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer. Recent evidence suggests that altered composition and diversity of gut microbiota may play a role in the increased prevalence of metabolic diseases. This review article has two main objectives. First, it underscores approaches (such as probiotics, prebiotics, antimicrobial agents, bariatric surgery, and weight loss strategies) and their prospects in modulating the gut microbiota in the management of metabolic diseases. Second, it highlights some of the current challenges and discusses areas of future research as it relates to the gut microbiota and metabolic diseases. The prospect of modulating the gut microbiota seems promising. However, considering that research investigating the role of gut microbiota in metabolic diseases is still in its infancy, more rigorous and well-designed in vitro, animal and clinical studies are needed.

[tex]

Hi Zizzle,

Thanks for the link. That's an interesting article, but it's based on speculation, not fact. None of those claims have ever been proven by research showing a clear cause and effect relationship that meets the test of valid scientific research.

Note that all of the claims involve vague, speculative terms, such as the following, taken from the abstract that you quoted above:

"have been associated"

"Recent evidence suggests that"

"may play a role"

Valid facts are totally absent from the prologue of that abstract, and presumably their review article proposes to "build" on those speculative statements. Is that pathetic or what?

When one starts with speculation and guesses (while pretending that they are facts), the products of further discussions can only become even more speculative and unsubstantiated.

Now I'll be the first to admit that I do plenty of speculating, suggesting, and proposing of theories. But at least I'm honest enough to admit right up front that what I am saying is strictly my opinion, and it is not based on solid proven research. I never try to pretend that it is proven fact, it it's not proven fact.

By contrast, the authors of that article are trying to hide the fact that they actually have no facts on which to base their article, so instead they are basing it on speculation and conjecture, and they're hoping that no one will notice. But I noticed, and you should have, also.

FWIW, that article comes out of the Department of Pharmacology, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Department of Pharmacology? Oh yeah, now I remember — those are the guys who make a living promoting probiotics and medications.

Tex