By now I’m sure that most of you have heard of Glyphosate, I’ve written many articles about the dangers over these past few years,especially if you suffer MTHFR issues…
I’ve also talked about our CYP450 enzyme pathway in regards to pharmaceuticals and cannabis. But I haven’t talked about them together until now.
CYP enzymes play a significant role when it comes to gut bacteria, obesity, heart disease, depression, infertility, cancer, Alzheimer’s, autism, gastrointestinal disorders, diabetes and of course how we react to certain medications.
Ok but acutely glyphosate has been said to be less toxic than aspirin so what’s the problem?
Glad you asked!
Something I mentioned a few years back was that we are not mostly human, but rather more bacteria – there in lays the issue. You see humans do not have what is deemed a shikimate pathway (stay with me here) – bacteria however do! More specifically – gut bacteria. These bacteria not only help with digestion they also help us to synthesize vitamins, detoxify xenobiotics, and help us boost our immune system. Oh and one last thing… they also help prevent leaky gut.
Since we are seeing glyphosate possibly depleting sulfate which then leads to inflammatory bowel disease and leaky gut down the road we can also draw a link to weight issues. We hold onto fat cells because the over burden of toxins need somewhere to go, and that is our fat. Glyphosate depletes tryptophan, an essential amino acid – which can lead to obesity. It’s sort of the bodies way of protecting us which sucks when you want to look cute in a fitted shirt, but that’s not the worst of it. When tryptophan is depleted we end up with low levels of serotonin and melatonin in our brain. Serotonin is actually a appetite suppressant, when we don’t have enough we have a tendency to overeat which then can lead to… you guessed it OBESITY. Paradoxically this could lead to anorexia, a severely inflamed digestive system and therefore embarrassing trips to the bathroom.
There are theories (supported by whitepapers) that the rise in juvenile onset Crohn’s disease and inflammatory bowel disease in general may have something to do with the impact that glyphosate has on the gut (or rather it’s bacterial content).
There has been evidence over the past 10 or so years showing (in cattle) an overgrowth of a harmful bacteria of the clostridium type – that’s bad news for us humans. Both Salmonella and Clostridium are considered pathogenic strains, and very resistant to glyphosate – where more beneficial strains like Enterococcus, Bacillus and Lactobacillus are extremely vulnerable to glyphosate exposure. There was also a link between glyphosate and loss of biodiversity in raw cow milk.
Let’s chat autism for a moment, it was proposed that the sulfate deficiency associated with autism could be associated with the overburden of Clostridium caused by glyphosate as part of the bodies detoxy process.
Let’s talk about C-difficile, it’s found to be a cause for colitis, and a contributing factor in the rise of inflammatory bowel disease in general in patients when prior to 2003 it was virtually a non issue. Since 2003 it has been growing in frequency at alarming rates considering the severity of it. There is a toss up as to if it has to do with the overuse of antibiotics or due to glyphosate – there are theories and I bet you can guess which side I’m on….
If this isn’t scary enough let’s look further down the pathway. P-cresol is formed by C-diff, and is a super highly toxic carcinogen which causes issues with our cardiovascular system as well as our lungs, kidney, liver and central nervous system. Some researchers have even gone as far as to compare higher instances of autism with babies not breastfed but rather formula fed (soy formula) which was contaminated with glyphosate. Part of this theory seems to also come from impaired sulfate supply to our gut mucosa – creating dysbiosis.
Alright back to the CYP conversation. I mentioned above that glyphosate inhibits enzymes important to this pathway. We are seeing inhibition of aromatase (that is the enzyme that converts testosterone into estrogen) as well as messing with our detox process. Vitamin D and cholesterol depend on CYP enzymes – what if our growing epidemic of vitamin D deficiency is actually due to glyphosate?
I could go on and on but I think I’ve given some pretty good food for thought. What do you think? Leave your comments below!
