Glyphosate Threat for Autism, ADHD & the Building Blocks for Human Health
Is there a definite link between Autism, ADHD & Glyphosate?
A growing body of experts believe that glyphosate (an organophosphate in herbicides like Round-Up and a proven contributor to non-Hodgkins Lymphoma) is implicated in a long list of health conditions due to its harmful impact on the building blocks of human health. These experts include Dr Stefanie Seneff of MIT, Dr Zak Bush of the University of Virginia and Dr Oscar Coetzee of the University of Bridgeport.
Although there is no definitive study proving this hypothesis "beyond any doubt", there are numerous scientific research papers and studies that have strongly linked glyphosate with harming human health beyond non-Hodgkins Lymphoma which was proven in a California court in 2018.
The potential damage to human health calls for public education to mitigate the epidemic in chronic illness.
Glyphosate disrupts the building blocks of human health
Dr Stephanie Seneff, a Senior Research Scientist at MIT believes "glyphosate will go down in history as the worst synthetic chemical this planet has ever faced, as a consequence of its perceived non-toxicity to humans and its massive use in agriculture and on people's lawns with careless handling due to lack of awareness of its insidious, cumulative toxicity. "
Dr. Seneff sees a strong link between glyphosate and the epidemic of chronic illness that has skyrocketed over the past 2 decades that includes autism, ADHD, alzheimers, dementia, chronic fatigue, cancer and a long list of auto-immune diseases. She sees several mechanisms at play:
But the greatest harm Dr Seneff sees in glyphosate is its ability to insert itself in protein chains as a substitute for glycine which disrupts the shikimate pathway (among many other resulting problems). She calls this a slow poisoning, "an insidious and accumulative mechanism of toxicity" that results in various acute illnesses depending on what protein chain it disrupts and the state of the individual's microbiome.
ASD, children's health & the glyphosate threat
Childhood Autism, ADHD, allergies, asthma, anxiety have all risen at alarming levels in the past 20 years, a time that corresponds to the increased use of glyphosate.
Between 1974 and 2014 over 1.6 billion kilograms of glyphosate have been applied to US soil, representing 19% of total world consumption. In 2014, .8 pounds of glyphosate was used per acre of crop. Glyphosate use globally has risen almost 15-fold since "Roundup Ready" genetically engineered, glyphosate-tolerant crops were introduced in 1996. (Trends in glyphosate herbicide use in the United States and globally, Charles M Benbrooks)
A 2018 report by the Ecological Society of Australia stated that 15,000 tons of glyphosate is used in Australia per annum. A 2018 report from Carex Canada says over 176 products contained glyphosate (34 registered for domestic use) and an average of 25,000,000 kg of "active ingredient" per annum.
While the U.S. and Australian Governments are not testing glyphosate levels in foods, the Canadian Government did so at the urging of Tony Mitra (author of Poisoned Foods of North America) and found high levels of glyphosate in hundreds of different crops including wheat, soy, corn, sugar, canola, lentils.
The use of glyphosate has increased significantly since Monsanto introduced genetically-modified "round-up ready" foods. As a result, a common farming practice is to douse all crops (but especially GM crops) with large amounts of herbicide as a desiccant that enables them to kill and harvest the crop more efficiently. The Canadian study actually found higher levels of glyphosate in non-GMO foods which means that they are not necessarily pesticide/herbicide free and therefore organic is the gold standard.
Unfortunately, glyphosate is found at high levels in many of the foods that children love including cereals, crackers, pasta and bread. So the majority of children are exposed to poisonous and nutrient-deplete food at every meal.
Supporting gut health, immune health and brain health
Education in accurate science is the first step to finding solutions to our epidemic of brain-immuno-gut conditions. With a deep knowledge of glyphosate's damaging effects, Dr Seneff offers some important solutions:
Dr Oscar Coetzee:
The Glyphosate threat to human health
Dr Oscar Coetzee toured Australia in December 2018 where he trained Integrative Medicine practitioners. Based on his clinical experience he discussed the dangers of Glyphosate. The video below and transcript notes offer some of his presentation highlights.
Dr Oscar Coetzee, PhD and Clinical Nutritionist is the Clinical Director of the Natural Health Center in Long Branch, New Jersey. He has a master's degree in human nutrition from the University of Bridgeport, a PhD in holistic nutrition from Clayton College of New Hampshire, and a Doctor of Clinical Nutrition (DCN)
Dr Oscar Coetzee talks about Glyphosate, how it's been abused in the world for many years, and its negative effects on the building blocks of our health.
Since 2006 I believe Australia started buying Glyphosate from China and using it in radical amounts. The problem with Glyphosate is that it is a chemical or an organophosphate that is water-soluble so, it tends to go everywhere.
Mineral depletion in the food supply
Glyphosate is a chelating agent so it pulls metals out of just about everything. It pulls all the minerals that people need for their health out of the food supplies so people are finding fewer and fewer minerals in their food. Therefore, they cannot have the building blocks for health.
And, the biggest problem with it is the fact that we're using it as a desiccant, so that means that we're spraying these pesticides on foods that we want to harvest earlier because we want to get the food out to the world quicker or, enhance profit and, that is putting that organophosphate on our food supply and, that is a really disastrous issue.
Glyphosate is pulling minerals out of our food supply
What are we doing about the Glyphosate exposure currently?
There's some research, in the U.S. done by Dr Zack Bush where he has used a lignite extract that has been helpful but, we really don't know what to do with it at this particular point. The only way that you can really compensate for this is, whatever you're lacking you have to substitute because it is pulling minerals out of the system.
Proper supplementation may compensate for nutrition loss
It's also affecting the aromatic amino acids and these aromatic amino acids are the tryptophans and the tyrosines that convert to dopamine and serotonin so, once again, the only way that you can really compensate for some of that stuff at this particular point is proper supplementation.
As far as pulling all the Glyphosate out of the world and the food supply and the water and the shower water, we're looking at a bigger issue there. We don't really have the answers on that, which is kind of a scary thought but, at this particular point that's really what we know, including up the act, you know, staying away from the foods that are being sprayed with the product as a desiccant, eat as much organic as you can because it's helpful.
Glyphosate tests positive in most patients
We've run some Glyphosate tests in my office on patients and, everybody tested positive, there are levels of it but, it's pretty much out there for all of us at this point.
I work with a tremendous amount of intestinal permeability cases where, if you clean up the diet, try and get them away from as many of glyphosate-containing foods as you can and then you give them supplementation of a reasonably aggressive dose, you definitely can see improvement in those cases most of the time.
Integrative practitioners deal with intestinal permeability
Intestinal permeability is something I think any kind of integrative practitioners is working with today. I think it is because we are the only people that people come to for answers, because nobody can figure it out, because it's chronic and you can't point the finger at exactly what it is but, in clinical practice, on a daily basis, if I have to say that there's one particular case that stands out, there isn't, because I'm working with so many IBS cases and IBD cases and, from a foundational standpoint, the only thing that I can say is, in my own opinion, I feel there are levels of intestinal permeability and that's not really been written about or published much.
I believe that if I look at my patient base, some patients react to everything that they eat, even real, good quality food, and that's a severely permeable person because even the antioxidant reach in healthy and healing foods are actually causing an inflammatory response that's so strong in that person's body that they actually have a negative reaction to it.
Dietary intervention to improve nutritional intake can help
In those particular cases, it's very, very slow, progressive steps. Some people, when you just remove the Glyphosate, the herbicides and the desiccant sprayed or, over-sprayed food groups, you see improvement immediately because, if they're not severely compromised then those aromatic amino acids start to convert properly, they're starting to get the minerals and the vitamins back in the food supply and into their systems and, they can absorb it again and, that's obviously the level one in permeability in my opinion.
Additional Functional Tests may be relevant
When I get severely permeable patients, I'll actually do some additional testing. Apart from the GI-Map Test where we're looking at the biome, I will also do intercellular nutrient testing. I will do organic acid testing because I want to determine which of the pathways are being affected from the energy standpoint, I want to look at what your intercellular status is of Glutathione and Vitamin C and Vitamin B6 and so, it becomes a very individualized case at that particular point.
Mineral deficiencies can lead to other conditions
What we generally see are most of the important minerals being depleted. We see a tremendous amount of iron deficiency, anemia in people that use a lot of the Glyphosate products because, I know people are always pointing the finger at gluten and on I'm a big believe in Dr Fasono's research in gluten but, if you look at some of the research of some of the more published people in Glyphosate, you'll see that they actually have the same Villi atrophy from Glyphosate use in other products that you get from gluten and celiac disease.
Prescriptive considerations
Case Studies:
ASD & the Glyphosate Threat
From the studies mentioned above:
Further References & Research: