The Dr. Hyman Show - The Harmful Effects Of Weedkiller (Glyphosate) On Our Health And Our Future with Stephanie Seneff
Episode Date: June 30, 2021The Harmful Effects of Weedkiller (Glyphosate) On Our Health And Our Future | This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health, BiOptimizers, and TrueDark The statistics on glyphosate, the world’s most... commonly used pesticide, are pretty grim. Billions of pounds have been applied globally since the 70s. In the US, though we’re only 4% of the world’s population, we use 20% of the world’s supply annually. Then, we wonder why our rates of chronic disease are so much higher than other countries. The evidence against the use of glyphosate keeps mounting, yet it’s still legally drenching our food supply. I try to be as good as I can about eating organic, high-quality food, and my glyphosate test revealed I was still in the 50th percentile. Studies have linked glyphosate to cancer, endocrine disruption, infertility, immune dysfunction, liver and kidney damage, and disruption of the microbiome. And not only is glyphosate harming human health and the health of our future generations, it’s also destroying our ecosystems. Today on The Doctor’s Farmacy I dive into all-things glyphosate with Stephanie Seneff. Stephanie Seneff is a Senior Research Scientist at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has a bachelor's degree from MIT in Biology with a minor in Food and Nutrition Science, and a master’s degree, an engineer’s degree, and a PhD degree, all from MIT, in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.   Her recent interests have focused on the role of toxic chemicals and micronutrient deficiencies in health and disease, with a special emphasis on the pervasive herbicide, glyphosate, and the mineral, sulfur. Since 2008, she has authored over three dozen peer-reviewed journal papers on these topics. She is the author of a new book on glyphosate titled Toxic Legacy: How the Weedkiller Glyphosate is Destroying Our Health and the Environment (July 2021). This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health, BiOptimizers, and TrueDark. Rupa Health is a place for Functional Medicine practitioners to access more than 2,000 specialty lab tests from over 20 labs like DUTCH, Vibrant America, Genova, Great Plains, and more. You can check out a free live demo with a Q&A or create an account at RupaHealth.com. Right now, BiOptimizers is offering Doctor’s Farmacy listeners 10% off your Magnesium Breakthrough order. Just go to magbreakthrough.com/hyman and use code HYMAN10 to receive this amazing offer. TrueDark Daylights help prevent eye strain and headaches from overexposure to junk light and TrueDark Twilights collection for nighttime helps you get deeper sleep. TrueDark is offering podcast listeners 15% off with code DRHYMAN15. Just go to truedark.com/hyman. Here are more of the details from our interview: The history of glyphosate use (6:58) How glyphosate harms human and soil health (9:15) Glyphosate’s impact on mitochondrial function, metabolism, vitamin levels, glutathione production, and more (15:29) What do we know about glyphosate’s role in cancer and liver disease? (17:55) Why glyphosate’s impact on sulfur metabolism is so detrimental to our health (19:05) How glyphosate makes other chemicals more toxic to humans than they otherwise would be (23:06) The connection between autism and glyphosate (24:50) How our body swaps out glyphosate for glycine (30:55) Is there a safe amount of glyphosate in the environment and in humans? (34:16) What can we do to decrease our body burden of glyphosate? (40:24) The multiple ways glyphosate is detrimental to the environment (43:15) Countries that have banned glyphosate (50:44) Learn more about Stephanie Seneff at https://stephanieseneff.net/ and follow her on Facebook @stephanie.seneff.5 and on Twitter @stephanieseneff. Get your copy of Stephanie Seneff’s new book, Toxic Legacy: How the Weedkiller Glyphosate is Destroying Our Health and the Environment here: https://bit.ly/ToxicLegacy_Amazon
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy.
It's out there. You can't avoid it, unfortunately, and we're all getting sick as a consequence of it.
I think it's the major driver behind the rise in the huge list of diseases in this country.
You know, diabetes, obesity, autism, Alzheimer's, various cancers.
It's quite shocking. These things are all rising dramatically in prevalence over time,
exactly in step with the rise in glyphosate usage on core crops.
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Hey everybody, it's Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy. That's pharmacy with an F-F-A-R-M-A-C-Y,
a place for conversations that matter. And if you care about your health and the environment,
if you care to learn about glyphosate, otherwise known as Roundup or the weed killer that's causing
havoc to our health, planetary health, our microbiome, the microbiome of the soil, and
many, many other issues, then you should listen up carefully because we have an extraordinary guest
today, Stephanie Seneff, who is a senior research scientist at MIT, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. She's at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. She has a bachelor's
degree from MIT in biology with a minor in food and nutrition science, a master's degree in
engineering degree and a PhD degree, all from MIT. You stayed true to MIT. And also a degree in
electrical engineering and computer science. So this is one smart lady. And her really focus these last years has been on the role of toxic chemicals
and micronutrient deficiencies in health and disease. And I followed her work. I'm a big fan
of hers. She really focuses on now on this herbicide glyphosate, otherwise known as Roundup. It's a weed killer and it is the most prevalent
agrochemical used. It's on 70% of all crops. And she also is looking on how these affect
different minerals and sulfur and other things. She's authored over three dozen peer-reviewed
papers on these topics. She's authored an incredible new book, which you all have to get called Toxic Legacy, How the Weed Killer
Glyphosate is Destroying Our Health and the Environment. And it's out. So make sure you
pick up a copy. This is a game changing book. And some people have compared this book to Silent
Spring by Rachel Carson to really reveal the underbelly of what these chemicals are doing
to human and planetary health. And the more I learn about it, the more scared I get about it. And I don't think we're out of
the woods, even if it's banned, because there's other chemicals that are being now developed by
major agrochemical companies to replace it as kind of better than, but often that isn't really
the case. So welcome, Stephanie, to the Doctors Pharmacy podcast. Thank you for that wonderful
introduction. Okay. So now let's get right into it. Glyphosate is this active ingredient in Roundup. It's the
most commonly used weed killer in the world. There's about 300 million pounds of this herbicide
sprayed on farms and food every year. Is that just the United States or that's globally? I
think it's probably more globally. Yeah. 9 billion globally.
9 billion. nine billion.
Kilograms, kilograms.
Sorry, I just have to watch the units.
Nine billion kilograms.
That's an incredible amount.
I don't even know what nine billion kilograms looks like.
Mind bogglingly big.
Mind boggling.
It's on 70% of all crops.
And it's been around for a while, but not that long, right?
In the 70s, it started being used and was actually used to sort of clean pipes.
I was supposed to clean old leaded pipes and stuff
and all the gunk out of water pipes.
But it turned out as it came out of the other end,
it started killing all the weeds.
And they're like, oh, there's a weed killer.
So talk about the history of glyphosate,
why farmers use so much of it,
and why it's so toxic and bad for us.
Yes, well, it was, you're right.
1961, it was patented as a pipe cleaner, and it wasn't Monsanto, but Monsanto figured out
it could kill weeds, and they patented it in 1969 for that specific role.
And then 74 was when it got rolled out in America.
We started being able to buy it, and they didn't use that much up until the late 1990s,
which was when they figured out how to engineer crops to resist it. That was a huge breakthrough in agriculture.
And that caused a huge increase in the use of life as an exponential growth over time in those
next decades. And since then, really, it's just been growing phenomenally because it's been
successful in just spray the weed killer all over the crop.
The crop doesn't die.
The weeds die.
It's very convenient for agriculture, and it's made our food cheap.
The United States uses 20% of the world's supply,
and we're only 4% of the world's population.
So you can see that we get a lot more exposure than people elsewhere in the world.
We have the most per person of any country in the world.
That's terrifying. Yeah, I've actually checked my urine glyphosate levels and, uh,
I'm like, you know, I pretty much focus on eating organic food. I don't try to eat any GMO foods.
I mean, I, I, I, I'm not perfect. Cause if I go out to a restaurant, I don't know what I'm getting.
And I was shocked that I was in the 50th percentile for glyphosate in my body.
It's silly, disturbing, isn't it? I had a similar experience. I was shocked that I had in the 50th percentile for glyphosate in my body. It's silly, disturbing, isn't it?
I had a similar experience.
I was shocked that I had any at all.
And I tested, I was positive.
So it's, and I eat organic.
I eat certified organic for many years.
So it's just, you know, it's out there.
You can't avoid it, unfortunately.
And we're all getting sick as a consequence of it.
I think it's the major driver behind the rise
in the huge list of diseases in this country.
You know, diabetes, obesity,
autism, Alzheimer's, various cancers. It's quite shocking. These things are all rising dramatically
in prevalence over time, exactly in step with the rise in glyphosate usage on core crops.
Yeah. Well, it's interesting, you know, Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, you know, she talked
a lot about the birth defects and also the sort of developmental effects of these chemicals,
which got people to really think about them. But the glyphosate is a little different. It doesn't
seem to cause the developmental effects, but it causes all these other issues like cancer
and destroys our microbiome. So can you talk about what it actually does to the human body,
but also the soil? Because I think it's very similar in its adverse effects
around harming the microbiome of the soil and harming our microbiome, which turns out to be
a very important part of our biology and may link all those diseases you mentioned.
That is so true. And that's what, you know, I've realized is that, and of course others have too,
because the number of papers on the microbiome is going up very rapidly in the last 10, 20 years.
People are finding how important those microbes are because they're not working correctly.
People are getting so many diseases that trace back to mitochondrial, to the microbiome
disruption.
And glyphosate, unfortunately, preferentially kills the beneficial bacteria.
That's crucial.
It kills off lactobacillus and bifidobacteria,
which are really important in the baby, you know, to really get started with drinking the milk.
Lactobacillus is very important because it has a lot of enzymes that specialize in breaking down
casein in milk, the milk protein. And so when those enzymes are missing, the baby can't digest
milk. And that has lots and lots of consequences. We get things like casein intolerance, you know, gluten intolerance. I think it's due to this lateral bacillus being disturbed by glyphosate
and disrupting their ability to help us digest these foods that we're eating.
And then, of course, these pathogens take hold because the beneficial bacteria are weak and
depleted. And then the pathogens induce a leaky gut,
inflammatory gut, the immune cells come in, and things go south from there. So people just have
a lot of problems with their gut. I have a whole chapter on the gut in my book. And that was a
really hard chapter to write. I had to read a lot of material to kind of coalesce into a story.
But I finally got what I was happy with as a story for all the different things that glyphosate does, much more than what I've just said now, of course, related in part to the inability to break down proteins.
And that becomes very serious because it can end up with autoimmune disease.
When those proteins that you eat are not broken down in your gut, then that induces a leaky gut.
And then that also allows those proteins to get out into the general circulation, which then causes antibodies to those proteins.
And then through a process called molecular mimicry, they become autoantibodies and attack your tissues.
So you get autoimmune disease.
Yeah, what you just unpacked there was so important. I just want to underscore it because when you are exposed to glyphosate, it seems to
directly impact the microbiome by killing off your inner garden in ways that prevent
it from actually protecting you in the way it's supposed to from disease.
And the glyphosate seems to be responsible for increasing this widespread phenomena of
leaky gut, which means that the barrier in the gut is broken somehow.
And the proteins and the toxins from the bacteria and also food proteins leak,
literally leak into your bloodstream, interact with your immune system
and create a systemic response of inflammation.
And all the diseases that you mentioned, cancer, liver disease, autism,
heart disease, diabetes, I mean, these and all the diseases that you mentioned, cancer, liver disease, autism, heart disease, diabetes.
I mean, these are all inflammatory diseases.
So take us down that road a little bit more in depth about how glyphosate, despite it being claimed as safe by the food companies for humans, animals, and the environment, why it's not safe and how specifically the evidence is mounting around how it's connected to these various diseases.
And we see that even in courts,
this may not be played out in regulatory changes.
It's being played out in the courts where 14,000 lawsuits have been filed
against glyphosate and there's been billions in settlements against
the Monsanto bear now which which
actually owns monsanto so can you talk more about the science of how how much do we know how well
is this proven is this just hearsay or is is there good data linking glyphosate with these problems
yes well when you start with the gut microbes and of course glyphosate is a metal keelator that was
the first way that it was patented and when when it traps, when it binds to minerals,
it makes them unavailable to the gut microbes. That's part of the impact of how it disrupts them.
It hits on a particular enzyme called EPSB synthase in the shikimate pathway.
And that's a very, very important biological pathway in plants. And it's also very common
in the microbes in our gut.
Something like a study showed 54% of the gut microbes would be affected by this specific
problem of the chicken-made pathway getting disrupted. That pathway produces the aromatic
amino acids. And those are three of the coding amino acids that go into the proteins. And we
depend upon getting them from our food or from our microbes,
micro production of them, because our cells don't have that chicken mate pathway, they can't make
those proteins. So they can become deficient. And those proteins, those amino acids are really
critical. The aromatics, this tryptophan, tyrosine, and phenylalanine, they're super
critical for our health. And for example, tryptophan is a precursor to serotonin and melatonin.
And those are neurotransmitters that are extremely important for proper brain function.
Melatonin, you know, sleep disorder is going up dramatically in step with the rise in glyphosate
because probably in part because of disruption of melatonin supply.
And serotonin is the mood hormone.
You know, it's related to depression, violent behavior, its deficiency.
And they come out of that shikimate pathway.
Also, thyroid hormone.
It comes out of the shikimate pathway as well.
One of the different amino acids, tyrosine rather than tryptophan.
And so thyroid hormone is going to be disrupted.
Many studies have shown that glyphosate disrupts thyroid homeostasis.
So the hormones are getting disrupted.
The amino acids are being depleted.
Also, those enzymes go to B vitamins and niacin and riboflavin. Niacin and riboflavin are precursors
to molecules called NAD and FAD, which are very, very important for metabolism. And their deficiency
is going to disrupt the mitochondria. And I think mitochondrial
dysfunction... You can't make energy. Right. You can't make energy. Mitochondrial dysfunction is
central to so many diseases. And I think it's also central to glyphosate's effects on the body.
If I had to say one thing, I would say mitochondrial dysfunction as a key feature of what glyphosate
does. And many papers have shown that it causes oxidative stress. It causes depletion of glutathione. It causes glutathione
to be oxidized, which is important because glutathione is a really important antioxidant
only if it's reduced. Wow. So that's just a lot you unpacked there. Let me see if I got this right.
If you're exposed to glyphosate, it harmfully affects the bacteria in your gut
that produce really important amino acids that regulate your gene expression. And the pathway
it disrupts is a shikimate pathway. And that leads to abnormal gene expression and not being able to
actually do the things your body's supposed to do. And it also seems to deplete glutathione,
which you mentioned, which is a critical molecule for regulating inflammation,
detoxifying, antioxidant. It's really the center of our biology. And if it disrupts that,
we're kind of screwed. Right. Glutathione is so important. And we're seeing so many people
talking about taking glutathione as a supplement, taking antacetylcysteine as a precursor to glutathione.
Methionine is the core essential sulfur-containing amino acid, and it is a precursor to cysteine,
which goes to glutathione. Methionine synthesis is disrupted by any E. coli by glyphosate. There
was a study that showed that. So it prevents the microbes and also prevents the plants from producing methionine from inorganic sulfur. So this gives you, again, a deficiency
in the sulfur-containing amino acids. So we have a deficiency both in the aromatics and in the
sulfur-containing amino acids. And they're so important for so many things. It's just uncountable,
practically, the ways that that would impact particularly your metabolism, of course,
also protein synthesis, and of course, all the hormones that that would impact particularly your metabolism of course also protein synthesis
and of course the all the hormones you know that that are affected and the b vitamins all of those
things are going to be affected by these disruptions by glyphosate and i mean you're
a mit scientist this is not some crazy fringe idea uh this is you're you're you're an evidence-based scientist it's looking at hard
at hard at the data and coming to these conclusions why why well first before we get into why why the
government hasn't figured this out yet um let's let's talk about you know other diseases and how
good the evidence is how good is the evidence around cancer, for example, or diabetes or autism or any of these autoimmune issues
that you're talking about?
Yeah, cancer is actually the hardest one to explain
and maybe the weakest one.
In fact, I would say cancer, of course,
evolves out of mitochondrial dysfunction.
So eventually it causes it.
Studies have shown that it enhances other chemicals effects
that would lead to cancer. In other words, a secondary effect. There are studies that have shown that it enhances other chemicals effects that would lead to cancer.
In other words, a secondary effect.
There are studies that have shown that.
And there are also studies that have shown that it causes cancer cells, breast cancer cells in vitro to proliferate when they're exposed to extremely tiny levels in parts per trillion.
Parts per trillion levels of glyphosate induced proliferation and cancer cells.
I think it does cause several different cancers,
but the it's a much more difficult thing to explain than some of the other
diseases. Liver disease is quite easy to explain.
If you accept my theory,
which we maybe should get into at this point, because that's crucial.
My theory for it's extremely unusual mechanism of toxicity.
So just to back up for people, a liver is your detoxifying organ and and you hinted at how glyphosate interrupts
sulfur metabolism there's a critical part of our biology and in functional medicine you know there's
there's a real focus on our sulfur biology because it's critical for
detoxifying all the environmental compounds are exposed to for metabolizing our own internal
toxins. And people who have low glutathione, which is the sulfur-based compound, are sicker.
I remember reading one study that if you looked at people who are hospitalized versus not hospitalized, you know, if you have this general lower levels of glutathione based on a gene that is important
in regulating it, you're, you know, 50% of the time you're going to be more likely to end up
in the hospital. So it's kind of a marker for overall health and wellbeing. And I'm personally
a lot of experience with glutathione because I had mercury poisoning and it gets very depleted and i had to learn how to restore my sulfur metabolism and
also something called methylation which is the b vitamins because they're very interlocked and
you think of your biochemistry for those listening it's it's like this big network of biochemical
reactions but right at the center of it is this two core systems that run all the time literally
every second millions and millions of
times a second, billions of times probably called methylation and sulfation. And these pathways,
I've written a lot about them in books and articles, but this is the key to health.
It's the key to gene expression, to immune function, to detoxification,
to cognitive function. I mean, it just goes on and on and on. So when this is screwed up,
it's not just like some sort of minor pathway that gets disrupted in human biology. It's a cognitive function. I mean, it just goes on and on and on. So when this is screwed up, it's not just like some, you know, sort of minor pathway that gets disrupted in human biology. It's a major pathway. So with that background, can you explain how glyphosate disrupts sulfur metabolism a little more clearly and explain, you know, what really the role of the sulfurs in maintaining health and why we should be terrified about glyphosate and sulfate.
Right. I mean, I think glyphosate disrupts sulfate synthesis, sulfate activation, sulfate transport and sulfate delivery.
It disrupts every step of the way for sulfate. And as you mentioned, mercury actually gets sulfated to detox it.
If you can't sulfate the mercury, you're in trouble.
I think that we have a systemic deficiency in sulfate in the glycocalyx, which is this
lining of all the cells, like in the blood vessels.
There's all this sulfate that populates these sugar molecules, complex sugar molecules
lining the blood vessels.
Those need to be heavily sulfated to have the blood
circulation work correctly. And also for the cells to be able to receive signals and to bring in
different things they're going to take in to digest. It's just really central. Having enough
sulfate around the exterior of the cell, it also gives the red blood cells negative charge,
which is important for the zeta potential in the blood. There's just all these things that are connected to sulfate. And I talk a lot about sulfate in my
book. It's actually been central to my understanding of where biology has gone wrong. And I felt
sulfate was in trouble with autism and with heart disease many years ago, long before I knew about
glyphosate. So the sulfate and the glyphosate really came together very nicely for me, for me to recognize how glyphosate is causing autism and probably heart disease through sulfate issues.
And as you mentioned, the sulfation, sulfation is very important for detoxing many of these fat soluble chemicals that they go to the liver, takes the liver's job to detox them and takes them up.
It adds sulfate, oxidizes them up it adds sulfate oxidizes them it adds sulfate the enzymes that the sype enzymes that take that do that first
step of detox are also suppressed by glyphosate that's been shown in multiple studies it suppresses
the enzymes in the liver that modify these fat soluble molecules to make them to detox them and
to make them water soluble so they can be removed through the urine. So what you're saying basically is when toxins come in the liver, they have to be
detoxified by the liver. And there are enzymes that do that, that are like the helpers. What
you're saying is that glyphosate screws up those enzymes. So those chemicals can't get processed
down the assembly line of detoxification. Yes. And of course, then those chemicals become much more toxic. So glyphosate makes many,
many other chemicals much more toxic than they would otherwise be because it disrupts the liver's
ability to detoxify them. And of course, glutathione is part of that problem because
a lot of things get glutathione-related to get removed as well. There's methylation,
glutathione-relation, sulfation. These are all steps that are
taking the liver to change these molecules into something that's less toxic. And that process
gets broken down by glyphosate. So it's really quite remarkable, all the things that it can do
to disrupt your health. The whole sulf, the whole sulfate story has,
in part it's because these shikimate pathway,
because the shikimate pathway produces those aromatics.
For example, serotonin gets produced
in large amounts in the gut, actually,
and also melatonin.
They both are produced in large amounts in the gut.
They are sulfated before they're shipped out.
And then they arrive in the brain in a sulfated form.
I think the serotonin is
actually transporting sulfate to the brain. This is something I talk a lot about. There's all these
molecules that get sulfated in transit, not just the toxic chemicals, vitamin D, cholesterol,
various sex hormones, they're all sulfated when they're shipped out. And then all these aromatics
that come out of the shikimate pathway. So those molecules become deficient, which means that the sulfate transporters become
deficient, which means that the brain doesn't get enough sulfate.
And autism is very strongly linked to heparin sulfate deficiency in the brain ventricles.
That's really been a core feature of autism that's been shown in both mice and humans.
And I think it's just because there's not enough sulfate being delivered to the brain. And the body does something very interesting to get around that,
which is quite fascinating and also quite disturbing, which is that it produces hydrogen
sulfide gas in the liver, in the gut. The autistic children produce hydrogen sulfide gas,
which then floats up to the brain and then gets oxidized in the brain to make sulfate.
So, it's a way to transport sulfate oxidized in the brain to make sulfate.
So it's a way to transport sulfate,
a very sneaky way to transport sulfate by turning it into a gas,
turning the sulfur molecule into a gas, hydrogen sulfide. It also makes the kids poops really smelly and stinky.
Yes.
And it also gives them brain fog because the hibernation is,
is all involved with hydrogen sulfide gas.
And it's basically people go into hibernation because they've got hydrogen sulfide
floating in their brain.
Their brain is, and then of course,
you have to have oxidizing agents
to oxidize it to sulfate,
which gives you the inflammations,
inflammatory process in the brain
that's characteristic of autism.
This kind of chronic low-grade encephalopathy
that's a feature of autism
is because the autistic brain
is constantly trying to make sulfate from hydrogen sulfide gas. Wow. This is just so much information. I'm just loving this.
I think just to unpack a little bit for people, you know, when you eat foods with glyphosate,
which is 75% of all or 70% of all crops, and often it's used on GMO foods like soy,
but even non-GMO foods is used on like wheat.
There's a whole host of different ways in the body that it screws things up, right?
So what you're saying, it screws up this pathway
that makes the neurotransmitters
that help regulate gene expression
important for cognitive function.
It disrupts glutathione,
which is critical for detoxification.
It regulates immunity and oxidative stress.
It also affects protein synthesis and immune function
and can create a leaky gut destroy the microbiome so you've got all these mechanisms not just one
but many mechanisms by which glyphosate destroys human health right yeah and people say how can
one chemical cause so many diseases i mean i showed all those charts nancy swanson was the
first one who started doing those charts i don't't know if you saw those of rising to various diseases,
strongly, absolutely, practically, perfectly correlated with the rise in glyphosate usage
on core crops over time. And it was just stunning. And p-values are 0.000000, I mean,
several zeros before the first significant digit of the correlations between these two trends in disease versus the rise in glyphosate usage. And, you know, people would say, well, they would
say correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation. And then they would say, how could one chemical
cause so many diseases? And I was wondering that myself, but now I understand how, and it is this
metal, it disrupts a whole, minerals are completely messed up. Iron, manganese, zinc, they become both toxic and deficient at the same time because of its ability to bind to them and hold on to them, prevent the natural system from transporting them properly.
And then it's the sugar mate pathway getting wrecked.
And that's all these aromatic amino acids and all the derivatives that are so important for our health are getting reduced.
And then it's actually the cype enzymes in the liver.
These have all been shown in multiple studies that it's doing this. The cype enzymes in the
liver are getting suppressed, which is cytochrome P50 enzymes, which is stage one detoxification
depressed. And then this inability for the gut microbes to convert inorganic sulfur into organic
sulfur, which is going to give you methionine. And methionine, of course, is the methylation pathways. It's the sulfation pathways.
Those are all going to be disturbed because of deficiency in methionine. And instead,
the sulfur gets reduced to hydrogen sulfide gas, which then causes all these other problems.
Wow. So it just jams up your biochemistry is the bottom line. It's just like,
it's like throwing a sand in an engine basically, right?
Right, right.
Yes.
Amazing.
Hey, everyone.
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Now, let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy.
And there's a few other things I want to sort of touch on, which is glycine.
Glycine is a very important amino acid.
And it does affect our protein synthesis. And tell us how our body has swapped
out glyphosate for glycine and what that does. Yes. And that's a central topic of my book.
That's almost the point of my book is to try to convince the audience that that's true,
because I've gotten, I've been saying this, Anthony Sampson was the first one who suggested
to me that might be happening, that it's substituting for glycine during protein synthesis.
And at first I was skeptical because it has an extra piece attached to its nitrogen atom. It
is a complete glycine molecule and it does disrupt glycine in various ways, that's known.
But it also potentially could be substituting for glycine during protein synthesis.
And there's no reason to stop it, it turns out, because proline is a coding amino acid that also has an attachment to its nitrogen,
and it's still able to find, there's another linkage that the nitrogen can hook up with the
other, because the amino acids have to hook up in a chain, and the nitrogen is involved in the
hook. They're like paper dolls holding hands, and the nitrogen needs to hold hands. It has something in the way, another molecule in the way, but if there's enough room
around, it can fit. So it turns out there's specific circumstances under which it will
substitute. And this gets a little complicated in terms of the science, but it's quite, quite
interesting because the enzyme in the shikimate pathway that gets disrupted by glyphosate has a glycine residue
at the site where it binds the phosphate piece of phosphoenolpyruvate. So that enzyme binds that
molecule at a place where glycine is highly conserved. And if you take that glycine out
and replace it with alanine, which is just an extra methyl group, very small change,
glyphosate can't affect it at all. All of a sudden, it's completely immune to glyphosate once you remove that glycine.
And they've shown that it is at that place where that glycine is that it disrupts the protein.
They've shown that that's the spot. And they know that they can either remove that glycine or they
can crowd it. They can put in other amino acids close by that'll crowd the glycine, and then the
glyphosate won't fit anymore. So the argument they say is that glyphosate is replacing the substrate, PEP.
What I say is that it's replacing the glycine. So we have a very different view of how that enzyme
is getting disrupted. If you say it's displacing the glycine, and if you say it can displace the
glycine in other enzymes that have the same property. And there are many, many enzymes with very important functions that have glycine at a
place that's highly conserved that binds phosphate, even that binds PEP, the same substrate.
And I suspect it's affecting many of those enzymes.
It's that particular group of enzymes that are getting extremely disturbed by glyphosate
and that have enormous roles in metabolism.
And that's how you're going to get mitochondrial dysfunction,
all kinds of things.
So it screws up your immune system. It screws up your mitochondria energy.
It screws up your gut, creates oxidative stress.
It screws up your detox system. What doesn't it do?
That's the big question. Cancer is an interesting one.
And there are cancers that are going up dramatically. Pancreatic cancer,
thyroid cancer um liver cancer
and and kidney cancer it definitely affects it affects a lot of the um endocrine system basically
the glands that's what i want yeah it's huge so so there's nine million kilograms of this stuff
sprayed around the world 300 million pounds or kilograms done on the United States is a lot.
We're exposed to this in significant quantities, right? And so what is the amount
that is going to cause harm? Oh, I know. That's the real question, right? I think need zero. I
think we need to ban it worldwide and we need to work hard on figuring out how to get it out of
the soil and out of the air and out of the water. You know, we have a huge problem right now. We've got all
kinds of life is a gathering up because it takes it a long time to, well, it can get broken down
quickly under optimal conditions. And of course, Juan Santos says that that's what's always there.
Two weeks later, it's gone. That's what they say. It is definitely not true. Experimental,
many different kinds of soils.
It'll last for four years. It was a study that showed that after two years, 60 percent of it was still there.
So, you know, and it stays in the ocean. If it gets deep and there's no sunlight, sunlight helps to break it down.
There are certain microbes that can metabolize it, but most microbes can't. So it has to be specialized microbes. I think we need to do research to
actually figure out which microbes can be safely put in the soil to help break it down, because
actually many of the pathogens can break it down, like the fungus. We have all kinds of problems
with fungus infections in both animals and plants, and fungus can break it down. So I think that's a reason why it's thriving. Incredible. So the amount we need
is not very much, right? If you were going to look at the data, is there any data on how much
glyphosate is in people? And if you look at the population, have they studied like what is the
body burden of glyphosate and is it in amounts that are really relevant or not? Yeah, that's a
big question. Of course, it's a question of what you think is relevant or not? Yeah, that's a big question.
Of course, it's a question of what you think is relevant.
And one thing, it has been found in people.
It's been found in large amounts.
And in fact, it's been found correlated with disease.
There was a study that showed people who had fatty liver disease, which is an epidemic.
And the people who had fatty liver disease, they were tested for glyphosate in the urine.
And they had statistically more than the ones who didn't have the disease. And among the ones who had it, the ones who had worse disease had statistically significantly more than the
ones who had less worse disease. This is fatty liver. And there was a study that-
That's 90 million. By the way, 90 million people in America are affected by that.
Yeah, it's huge. And I think glyphosate's really dead on. And a study on rats
exposed them to levels of glyphosate that were below regulatory limits and caused fatty liver
disease in those rats at those levels. The other thing that's coming out lately, which is really
shocking, is extremely low levels of glyphosate causing endocrine effects that are long lasting.
There are these amazing experiments coming out recently where people expose pregnant rats to glyphosate at levels that are so low the rat doesn't look like it has any problems.
The rat is perfectly fine.
The babies are born.
Everything's good.
The pups grow up.
They have their own offspring.
They grow up and you see all kinds of problems.
So in other words, it's showing up in the second and third generation.
So in the grandchildren of the rats that got exposed, there's the epigenetic changes that are passed through the lineage to other generations.
So you're not only dealing with what you're exposed to, you're dealing with what your grandmother was exposed to.
Yes. And of course, we've now we're now getting second, third generation showing up because it's been since 1975.
Yeah, it's pretty terrifying.
It really is. I mean, I feel we have to I feel we have to ban this chemical worldwide right now. I mean,
if we have any hope for the future, I feel like we really need to wake up and realize this is
the thing that's causing all the problems that we're seeing. And it shocks me that we see all
this obesity, like this country is just, you know, so many problems with obesity. And we just think,
oh, we're just watching too much TV and eating too much popcorn. I mean, that's just like really ridiculous to think that could be the reason why we have
such a tremendous inability to keep the weight off.
Yeah.
Well, there's a whole science field called the study of obesogens.
And obesogens are environmental chemicals that cause obesity.
I've written a lot about this over the years.
Even 15, 16 years ago, I wrote about it because I used to see it in my patients.
And when you start to improve their detoxification and get rid of these chemicals from their
body, they actually do better.
Their metabolism improves, their weight loss comes off.
But what you're really saying is that most of us have levels of glyphosate in our bodies,
including you and I, that do impair human health.
And I'm sure people listening are wondering, what the heck can I do about it?
Other than, you know, like if Dr. Hyman and Stephanie, who's an MIT professor who's made her life works to study this, have high levels, what the heck am I going to do?
I know it seems really hopeless.
I was so depressed when I found that I was really shocked, actually, that I was contaminated.
It wasn't high, but it was there and it was measurable.
And it's just really depressing that you can't avoid it,
which I think is the case.
If you live in America, I mean, there are places in the world
where you probably can, but it's very difficult to find a place here
without it.
It's in the rain.
It's in the rain.
It's in the water.
It's in the atmosphere.
It's in our food.
There's a recent study in Brazil found it in the atmosphere, found it in the nanop it's in the atmosphere, it's in our food. Yeah, there's a recent study in Brazil found it in the atmosphere,
found it in the nanoparticles in the air, you know, in Brazil.
Is the majority, though, from our food that we get it?
I think so, but I'm not sure.
I mean, that's always been my big question.
I think people who live next to fields where it's being sprayed are in serious trouble.
And they're going to get things like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
because they're breathing to get things like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease because
they're breathing glyphosate. But I think most of us are getting it through our food and possibly
through our water. I mean, there's a question of a water supply. And it could also be from the air.
And I'm concerned about that with respect to biofuels, because I'm really quite wondering
if biofuels are introducing glyphosate into the air in cities where they're being burned,
because they're coming from, like, for example, ethanol ethanol bioethanol is coming from gmo roundup ready corn
or sugar cane sprayed with glyphosate right before the harvest so it could be in the atmosphere
i mean it is in the atmosphere and it could be from the air that you're getting exposure into
to the lungs and that's another word that i have so um is there a way for us is there anything
we can do eat take supplements anything that can help us reduce our glyphosate levels take a sauna
wheatgrass enema what are we gonna do yeah i mean i'm a big fan of sunlight and of course vitamin d
is so important but i i believe sunlight also helps you to make sulfate in the skin. I talk about that in my book, quite fascinating science.
And so sunlight exposure, I think, is extremely useful for improving your immune function.
Your immune function is really central to your health.
Many people in America have a weak innate immune system, and that's causing a lot of their diseases.
Their diseases are actually there to help boost the immune function.
They serve the immune cells to help improve their health.
I believe, you know, all these diseases like arthritis and things, gut dysbiosis and et cetera.
So we'd be taking, for example, sulfur-producing compounds that help boost glutathione like lipoic acid and inositol cysteine.
Yes, right.
We'd be taking the methylating B vitamins to help with that sulfur.
Right, to make sure you have methylated B vitamins.
Of course, I like to just eat really, really healthy foods,
certified organic, whole foods, lots of green vegetables, lots of salads.
But is that enough, though?
I mean, is that enough?
Because you've been doing that already.
So I'm thinking, okay, from my functional medicine perspective,
how can I fix these problems?
And glycine is another one, you know, taking gly glycine that's one that i've talked to functional medicine specialists who like glycine as a supplement yeah i love it yeah yeah because
that's going to help to counteract the glyphosate substitution for the glycine which is so important
to try to prevent you can take amino acids of glycine you can take sulfur boosting compounds like nac and lipoic acid selenium milk
thistle epsom salt baths vitamin b these are all things people can do and plus just cut out your
exposures as much as possible and then probiotics yeah yeah cut out exposure is crucial try everything
you can to cut out exposure and then probiotics especially it's curious that there was a study
on cows that found that sauerkraut juice was beneficial for cows that were um i can't imagine these cows
eating sauerkraut but um they were sick and they had glyphosate in their urine and they gave them
several things but sauerkraut juice was one of the things they gave them i don't know how they
thought to do that but i found that quite interesting because i was wondering whether
and i haven't hasn't proven, whether the microbes in the
sauerkraut juice were able to metabolize the glyphosate. I feel like if you could get microbes
growing in your gut that can metabolize glyphosate, you would be a lot better off.
And so, acetobacter, there are species of acetobacter that can metabolize glyphosate.
So, one could hope they might be in apple cider vinegar, you know, fermented foods.
It's a possibility. It hasn't been proven, but it's something that I find appealing.
So I sort of need a multi-pronged approach, right?
Yes.
Okay, so let's sort of switch gears a little bit for a minute.
So we talked about the human health impacts,
but let's talk about the environmental impacts.
Why is glyphosate such a threat to our environment,
the wildlife, and biodiversity, and the microbiome of the soil?
And why is that important?
Right. I mean, that important? Right.
I mean, that just goes so far, doesn't it?
And because the soil, if the soil isn't healthy, then the plant isn't healthy, then the food
isn't healthy.
And it just cascades downward.
There's so many animals that are in trouble right now.
There's such a mess with the insects, you know, the bees, the bee colony collapse syndrome,
the butterflies are disappearing.
I believe many of those problems that glyphosate is a major player in many of those problems.
People have always looked elsewhere.
And certainly there are other chemicals that are affecting them.
You know, the insecticides are an obvious one for the bees.
But lately, it's becoming clear that glyphosate is a player in the bee colony collapse syndrome. And it's quite clear with the monarch butterfly because glyphosate
is used to kill its major source of food as a weed. The milkweed is a weed that grows in the
corn crops and they use glyphosate to kill it. The butterfly depends on the milkweed as its diet.
The milkweed is poisoned with glyphosate, so so is the butterfly. The monarchs are disappearing.
Insects are way down. And of course, the amphibians, they're very sensitive to glyphosate so so is the butterfly the monarchs are disappearing insects are way down it's just uh it's and of course the amphibians they're very sensitive to glyphosate because they
have they breathe they take in water through their skin and um and they think their skin is very um
porous so they get they get the glyphosate probably goes right in through their skin
um so it affects wildlife it affects pollinators, it affects reptiles, biodiversity.
I mean, we need pollinators for fertilizing agriculture.
It's a lot of ways in which it screws things up.
To me, one of the most important ways is soil.
And we've talked a lot about soil, the importance of the health of the soil, the organic matter in the soil determines the quality of the food we eat, the quality of our health.
It's also necessary for the sequestration of carbon in the soil determines the quality of the food we eat and the quality of our health. It's also necessary for the sequestration of carbon in the soil or holding water for reducing the effects of chemicals.
So glyphosate seems to have a really horrible effect on soil and so microbiome as well as our own microbiome.
So can you talk about that and why that's important?
I can, yes.
In fact, it disrupts the ability for the plants to take up the nitrogen fixing bacteria get
disrupted. So the nitrogen is not easily taken up by the plants. And this means you have to use more
nitrate fillet fertilizers and that they stick around. And then when there's a rainstorm,
they wash out into the waterways. And this and actually we have a huge problem with the
overgrowth of cyanobacteria because of the nutrients that are being supplied.
They sort of block the sun and then you get into and they use up the oxygen.
So you have this hypoxic environment in the waterways that ends up producing nitrous oxide from that nitric oxide from that nitrate fertilizer.
It produces nitrous oxide, which is 100 times worse than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
So that's getting released. So it's messing up climate change as well. In fact, glyphosate
suppresses an enzyme, which is the most common enzyme in the world. It's called Rubisco. It's
a nice name, R-U-B-I-S-C-O, Rubisco. It's an enzyme that's present in many plants,
and it's essential for converting carbon dioxide into organic matter. So it's
preventing the plants from capturing the carbon dioxide in the air and putting it into the soil.
And that's, of course, a crucial way to avoid carbon release, global warming from these
greenhouse gases. I suspect that glyphosate is playing a major role in the crisis we're seeing
with carbon dioxide.
I don't know if you heard, but the carbon dioxide levels on the top of this mountain in Hawaii, the highest levels ever measured happened this April, this month.
Despite the fact that we've shut way down on the, you know, because of the lockdowns, we have a lot more, a lot less burning of fossil fuels in our vehicles.
And despite that, the levels keep going up. I think that, I think glyphosate is a major player
in climate change. And I'm frustrated that nobody seems to be looking at that.
Because of its effect on the soil health, you mean?
Yeah. Capturing carbon from carbon dioxide in the air, capturing it, turning it into organic
matter, putting it into the soil. This is a process that goes on in all the plants all over the planet.
And when glyphosate is there, it suppresses their ability to do that.
Yeah.
I mean, a lot of people listening to this podcast have heard me talk about regenerative
agriculture and the importance of soil health.
And we've had a lot of soil experts on the podcast.
And we've talked about the reasons for degraded soil health, tillage, and lack of cover crops,
and lack of animal integration, and lots of other things but and even uh nitrous uh nitrogen fertilizers but glyphosate seems to be
one of the worst actors uh in terms of damaging the microbiome of the soil which is intimately
linked to our health and our microbiome but also is critical as you said without the organic matter
in the soil which is really the microbes and the carbon from the plants.
We can't want to extract nutrients from the plants. Well, we can't hold carbon in the soil.
We can't hold water in the soil and we need all these agrochemicals. So in a sense,
glyphosate is the kingpin that can help unlock this. And it also causes the soil to erode much
more easily
erode so we lose the topsoil because it doesn't have enough organic matter to hold it in place
and hold water that's true now monsanto which is now gone and is a new company has been bought by
bear uh which is the same company makes your aspirin by the way but it's a big it's a big agrochemical company um they
seem to have bought this when it was undergoing a lot of review and lawsuits and took on a huge risk
and um and yet they seem to be okay with it and and and they also have been looking like maybe
they might shut down glyphosate but they've come up with another compound called Liberty Link, which is another
herbicide that they want to replace glyphosate with. And it's starting to be used all over
America and globally. What's your take on that? Because it's like, you know, it's a new thing.
Maybe it's better, maybe it's worse, but I don't trust it. Is that one glufosinate?
I'm not sure the chemical name for it you can look it up but
it's thinking it is but i i need to do a quick google search to see but glufosinate is also an
amino acid analog by the way it's an amino acid analog of glutamate and i suspect it's going to
have a similar property of substituting for glutamate during protein synthesis just as
glyphosate is substituting for glycine. It's possible that it's going to do that.
All these chemicals are bad.
Yes, it's glufosinate.
It's glufosinate.
It's glufosinate.
It's an amino acid analog of glutamate.
Of course, glutamate, you know, glutamate is a major player in autism because there's
excess glutamate in the brain.
It causes neuro excitotoxicity.
Glufosinate is bad news.
I mean, none of these herbicides are good.
That's a new, better one, but it's not good.
So what do we do?
We have to change our agriculture to a more regenerative system that doesn't need all that crap.
And when you look at the farmers like Gabe Brown, Alan Williams, and a lot of the regenerative farmers, they're actually phasing out all these compounds.
They're phasing out these Roundup Ready seeds, and're phasing out use of agrochemicals and they're seeing better yields, increased soil carbon, lower water use and water retention
in the soil is better, improving the nutritional density of the products.
They're making more money and they're actually drawing down and sequestering carbon as part
of the cycle of regenerating soil.
So, I mean, why is the government not doing this?
And other countries have really taken a stand on this.
And what countries have banned it?
And what do we need to do to get it banned here?
Right.
So Bermuda has banned it since, I think, at least 2015.
Bermuda has just not used it.
I think they care about their coral and trying to protect it. Sri Lanka and El Salvador banned it some time ago, off and on. They kind of banned it
and unbanned it because of kidney failure among the agricultural workers that were being exposed
to glyphosate. And Mexico is such a darling. I'm so happy to hear that Mexico just declared maybe
last year they're going to phase glyphosate out by
2024. And they're also going to phase out the GMO corn as well. So Europe has been trying to ban it.
And that's kind of a sad story, because I think Austria banned it. And then basically, or they
passed a law to ban it. And then I think higher ups of the European Union basically said you can't
do that, or you did it wrong or something.
So, you know, the European Union is trying to gain restful control over all those countries so that individual countries can't make individual decisions, which I think is really sad.
So Mexico, the environmental working group, I mean, sorry, the the EPA has basically.
Sort of taking a backseat on this and has said it's safe and it's not an issue.
And there were there were emails that were discovered under the Freedom of Information Act
in a lawsuit that found that the Trump administration was emailing
Bayer saying, don't worry, we got your back on glyphosate.
I know, you know, like, whoa. So maybe your book will help us to call this out in a way
that people can understand and that will catalyze lawmakers and policymakers. And I personally am
going to help you with my efforts in Washington to help educate lawmakers about the dangers of
glyphosate and begin to sort of hopefully
turn the tide on this. And it really comes down to one supporting a different form of agriculture,
like regenerative agriculture, but also but also to really help with driving, you know,
you know, the regulations that have to stop the use of it in this country. But nine billion pounds
is a hell of a lot. Yes.
A kilogram is actually more than nine billion pounds.
So basically, here we go.
We've gotten a bird's eye view, just really touched on it in the most superficial way,
really.
Everybody should get this book, Toxic Legacy, which is the subtitle is how the Weed Killer Glyphosate is Destroying
Our Health and the Environment.
It's out.
Get it wherever you get your books.
Amazon.
It's such an important book for our time.
And I think hopefully it'll be a catalyst to help people change their own behavior and
change policy.
And as sort of the take homes for people listening is that one, it disrupts so many of the body's key
systems, mitochondria and energy, your immune system, your microbiome, your hormones,
your oxidative stress, your detoxification pathways. But the good news is we know a lot
through our understanding of biology and functional medicine, how to help the body detoxify. So while
you may not be able to get rid of it completely, you can reduce your exposures by eating regenerative organic. You can make sure you are upregulating your pathways that
need to be upregulated, such as the glutathione pathway with lipoic acids, selenium, milk thistle,
N-acetylcysteine, even glutathione sublingually, as well as the B vitamins. We know you also need
things like Epsom salt baths, vitamin D and lots of other things to help.
So I'm sure all that's in your book.
I'm super excited to get this out in the hands of everybody.
And I'm so thankful you've done the hard work
and the science behind this and taking this on
because you could be a target for something,
you know, because of what you're saying.
So thank you so much, Stephanie.
And I love having you on the podcast. Any last thoughts or words you'd like to share something, you know, because of what you're saying. So thank you so much, Stephanie. And
I love having you on the podcast. Any last thoughts or words you'd like to share
about your work or what people can learn more?
It's hard to say, but I just really want to have hope for the future. And I'm so excited
about the regenerative agriculture. I think we need to be positive. We need to understand that
it's not hopeless. And if we do manage to get the product banned and not adding more, and then we learn how to remove what's there,
and then we learn how to fix the soil and grow healthy food and then be healthy and reduce our health care costs.
I mean, there's nothing not to like about that.
We just need to get lots of people on board.
We need to get the government on board to recognize that toxic chemicals have no place in our food supply. Well, thank you so much. And the book is now number one in the agriculture
industry on Amazon. I incredibly just definitely get it. It's so important, the book. And Stephanie,
keep doing the work you're doing. Keep us educated, inspired. People can read more about
your work online. Lots of articles you've written. And if you've been listening to this podcast,
we love you. Please share with your friends and family on social media. Leave a comment wherever you,
whenever you like about how maybe you've addressed the exposures in your life.
And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And we'll see you next week on The Doctor's Pharmacy.
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