New study links glyphosate-based herbicides to chronic disease

The new study Genetically engineered crops, glyphosate and the deterioration of health in the USA was published in the Journal of Organic Systems. It has linked glyphosate, the primary ingredient in Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide, Roundup, to an enormous increase in chronic diseases across the country, GlobalResearch reports. Dr. Nancy Swanson and the President of IFOAM, Andre Leu, led the research team for the study.
 

The herbicide glyphosate was introduced in 1974 and its use is accelerating with the advent of herbicide-tolerant genetically engineered crops. Evidence is mounting that glyphosate interferes with many metabolic processes in plants and animals and glyphosate residues have been detected in both. Glyphosate disrupts the endocrine system and the balance of gut bacteria, it damages DNA and is a driver of mutations that lead to cancer. In the present study, USA government databases were searched for GE crop data, glyphosate application data and disease epidemiological data. Correlation analyses were then performed on a total of 22 diseases in these time-series data sets.
 

The Pearson correlation coefficients are highly significant between glyphosate applications and hypertension, stroke, diabetes prevalence, diabetes incidence, obesity, lipoprotein metabolism disorder, Alzheimer’s, senile dementia, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, autism, inflammatory bowel disease, intestinal infections, end stage renal disease, acute kidney failure, cancers of the thyroid, liver, bladder, pancreas, kidney, and myeloid leukaemia. The significance and strength of the correlations show that the effects of glyphosate and GE crops on human health should be further investigated. The full study is available here.