Non-GMO crops such as oats, wheat, barley and legumes like chickpeas and lentils tend to be very high in glyphosate because these crops are sprayed with glyphosate right before harvest as a desiccant to speed the drying proces
Glyphosate and the Rise in Celiac Disease
In her book, Seneff details the dramatic increase in glyphosate use since its introduction in the mid-'70s. Estimates suggest that 1 pound of glyphosate is applied in the U.S. every year for every man, woman and child in America, which is an astounding amount. It's not even enough to buy non-GMO products, as many non-GMO items have been shown to have some of the highest levels of glyphosate.
Oats, wheat, barley and legumes like chickpeas and lentils tend to be very high in glyphosate because these crops are sprayed with glyphosate right before harvest as a desiccant to speed the drying process.
"I think that's the reason for the epidemic in celiac disease," Seneff says. "Samsel and I wrote a paper on that. We showed there's a strong correlation between the rise in celiac disease over time and the rise in glyphosate usage on wheat, specifically on wheat. It matches much better to wheat than it does to the other crops, which makes sense, because wheat is the source of celiac disease."
A case study of an American woman who tried to commit suicide by drinking glyphosate reveal some of the chemical's effects. She developed a paralyzed gut, and this may well be what's happening to many, on a low-grade scale. In essence, people's guts are sort of semi-paralyzed by the glyphosate in the diet, which causes small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO).
Bacteria starts festering in the upper intestine because the peristalsis is not working properly, so food remnants get stuck. Glyphosate has also been shown to accumulate in the brain, and animal studies show it causes neuro excitotoxicity due to excess glutamate in the brain. This, in turn, "is absolutely connected to autism," Seneff says.
In her book, Seneff also discusses the importance of sulfur for optimal health, how sulfate deficiency is connected to autism, and how glyphosate can cause sulfate deficiency.
How Glyphosate Affects Your Gut and Autoimmunity
Part of what makes glyphosate so toxic has to do with the fact that it's a very efficient metal chelator. It binds metals and minerals really well. For example, glyphosate is a million times more effective at chelating aluminum than EDTA, a chelating agent used in heavy metal chelation treatment.
This, in turn, disrupts your gut microbes because it makes minerals unavailable to the microbes. Your gut microbes need minerals, as their enzymes depend on them for proper functioning. Glyphosate also disrupts the shikimate pathway, both in plants and microbes, and beneficial microbes are particularly sensitive to glyphosate.
When lactobacillus bacteria are killed off in your gut, your ability to digest gluten and casein (milk protein) is impaired, as this bacterium carries several enzymes your body does not have that specialize in breaking down proline, an amino acid found in gluten and casein. This, in turn, can eventually lead to autoimmune problems. Seneff explains:
"We have all these allergies to gluten and casein these days, all these different food sensitivities, and I think it's because the lactobacillus are being killed off. They can't support the digestion of those proteins anymore. Then the protein sticks around, the peptide sequence, and that's what causes an immune reaction.
Then you can get an autoimmune attack through molecular mimicry — the antibody mis-recognizes a human protein because it looks like the piece of gluten that they become sensitive to, so they attack a human protein instead."
Glyphosate Makes Harmful Fat Even More Hazardous
Interestingly, glyphosate may also contribute to the harm caused by the omega-6 fat linoleic acid (LA). LA is metabolized into arachidonic acid, which is metabolized into an endogenous cannabinoid that eases pain. The enzyme that accomplishes this conversion is cytochrome P450 enzyme, which is disrupted by glyphosate.
Seneff suspects arachidonic acid is getting redirected through enzymes that convert arachidonic acid into extremely immunogenic products instead, such as leukotrienes, which act as signaling molecules that turn on an inflammatory response. A generic term for these signaling molecules is eicosanoids. She explains:
"Leukotrienes are rightfully blamed for causing all the chronic pain we're seeing — rheumatoid arthritis, joint and bone pain, and even, probably, problems with the brain, maybe headaches.
All the different kinds of pain we're experiencing that are connected to inflammation could be a consequence of cytochrome P450 enzymes blocking the ability to convert arachidonic acid into the endogenous cannabinoid. Instead, it gets redirected towards these signaling molecules that cause all this damage."
On top of that, LA, when oxidized, turns into highly toxic free radicals such as 4HNE, which cause direct oxidative stress damage to cell membranes, mitochondria, stem cells and DNA. In your mitochondria, a feedback loop then occurs that causes the shutdown of your energy metabolism system, resulting in an increase in adipose tissue. Translation: Excessive LA causes accumulation of belly fat.
Glyphosate Is a Biological Toxin
Its effect on the shikimate pathway is a key mechanism by which glyphosate causes biological harm in humans. The human body does not have this pathway — a fact used by Monsanto to argue for glyphosate's safety. But the microbes in your body do have it. Research has shown over half the microbes, on average, in your gut have the shikimate pathway and can therefore be decimated by glyphosate.
These include lactobacillus and bifidobacteria, which use the shikimate pathway to produce the aromatic amino acids tryptophan, tyrosine and phenylalanine, crucial coding amino acids that go into all the proteins of your body. They're absolutely essential for protein assembly, and your body must rely on your diet and gut microbes to produce adequate amounts of these amino acids, as your body cannot produce them any other way.
When your gut microbes are harmed, it can result in a deficiency of tryptophan, tyrosine and phenylalanine. These amino acids are also precursors to many other important biologically active molecules. For example, tryptophan is a precursor to melatonin and serotonin. Tyrosine is a precursor to thyroid hormone, dopamine and adrenaline.
"These are all really, really important hormones that control brain behavior and regulate behavior and mood," Seneff says. "Serotonin deficiency is connected to depression, and we have an epidemic in depression. So, I think there's a direct path there. Also, some of the B vitamins come out of the shikimate pathway, including thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2) and niacin (B3) …
You need thiamine for augmenting your immune system. If you don't have a lot of thiamine, you're not going to be able to generate a healthy immune response. That's why it's a part of septic protocols. If you're wrecking it with glyphosate exposure that's disrupting the shikimate pathway in your gut microflora, you've got a huge problem."
Glyphosate's Impact on Collagen
Yet another protein that has a high glycine content is collagen, the primary protein for your connective tissue. It constitutes about one-quarter of your body's proteins. Because of the presence of glycine, glyphosate has the ability to impair collagen as well.
"I feel confident that glyphosate is messing up collagen," Seneff says. "Collagen has a beautiful triple helix structure, which gives it really special properties of tensile strength and flexibility to hold water. Collagen has long, long sequences called GXY, GXY, GXY, where every third amino acid is a glycine. Those glycines hook together to form that triple helix.
There are people who have mutations in those glycines that cause joint and bone diseases, and I think glyphosate is causing that. Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is associated with glycine mutations in collagen, and there's an increase in the prevalence of that syndrome recently.
Of course, you have many more people getting hip replacement surgery, and people have back issues, back pain and shoulder surgery, knee and foot problems. All these different problems with the joints, I suspect, are being caused by misfolded collagen because of glyphosate messing it up."
Glyphosate's Impact on Your Vascular System
Another mechanism of action involves the suppression of nitric oxide (NO), primarily through the suppression of endothelial nitric oxide (eNOS), which is one of three ways your body makes NO. eNOS is a close relative to cytochrome 450 enzymes which, as mentioned, are decimated by glyphosate.
"The NO works together with sulfur dioxide to control the viscosity of your blood," Seneff explains. "NO turns into nitrate ... And sulfur dioxide turns into sulfate ... Nitrate is a chaotrope, and sulfate is a kosmotrope. Kosmotropes are very interesting molecules that control the viscosity of blood. It's all about water structuring, stuff that Gerald Pollack talks about.
Kosmotropes make the water structure more like gel and the chaotropes make it more like fluid, liquid. Those two work against each other to maintain the correct viscosity of the blood while other things are going on. If you put a bunch of lipid particles into the blood, it's going to get more viscous, so you've got to make it less-viscous by adding NO.
So, there's a back and forth between NO and sulfur dioxide that's regulated by eNOS. This is a theory that I have, and it makes a lot of sense. I have continued to gather evidence that supports it.
If glyphosate messes up eNOS, then it messes up the blood's ability to maintain its proper viscosity, which means your blood could be too fluid. You could end up with hemorrhaging. It could be too thick, it can't circulate, so you end up with blood clots."
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