More GMO news; Russia Announces Ban on GMO Imports

As a physician who aims to help people by healing their bowel and microflora, and subsequently reducing inflammation over the whole body, I am frustrated as to how hard it is. 

Even with a pure gluten free diet, so many people have signs of inflammation, malnutrition and bowel malfunction. 

What do I suspect is going on when the person is following a pure true gluten free diet. Well there are lots of food additives that can cause problems such as carrageenan. Drugs can be a hinderance to healing, such as NSAIDs. However, the one prime suspect seems to be GMO in or on vegetables, grains, legumes, and in commercial meats and meat and dairy from animals fed the usual commercial feed with GMO corn and soya. 

Here is a report from Alternative News on the trends on the rejection of GMO products in Russia and in other parts of the world including China.  This rejection is based on complex influences such as: practicality in the light that GMOs are not needed to end hunger, early yet scientific discoveries and politics.

Earlier this year, Russia’s plan to stop importing GMOs went into effect. According to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Russia has the means, and the space, to cultivate organic food, and therefore has no need for GMOs.

In a statement, the Vice President of Russia’s National Association for Genetic Safety, Irina Ermakova, asserts:

“It is necessary to ban GMOs, to impose moratorium (on) it for 10 years. While GMOs will be prohibited, we can plan experiments, tests, or maybe even new methods of research could be developed.


It has been proven that not only in Russia, but also in many other countries in the world, GMOs are dangerous. Methods of obtaining the GMOs are not perfect, therefore, at this stage, all GMOs are dangerous.”



Ermakova continues:

“Consumption and use of GMOs obtained in such way can lead to tumors, cancers and obesity among animals. Bio-technologies certainly should be developed, but GMOs should be stopped. We should stop it from spreading.”

Aside from imports, Russia does allow the production and trade of GMO foods within the country. If a certain product contains more than 0.9 percent GMO material, however, it must be labeled by the manufacturer.

Along with Russia, much of the world is fighting against the continued proliferation of genetically modified foods. China has repeatedly refused imports from the United States, due to the potential for GMO contamination, and last summer decided to end its production of GMO corn and rice altogether.

The Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico refused to allow the planting of Roundup Ready soybeans earlier this year. Northern New Zealand is working to ban GMOs, and, Bhutan has announced its plan to become the first fully organic nation on Earth. These are just a few examples among many.

In the United States, we're far from banning GMOs – we’re still working on labeling. Seems we’re a bit behind the times on this front.

Sources:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/its-official-russia-has-banned-gmo-products-commitment-to-organic-food/5414961
http://rt.com/news/russia-import-gmo-products-621

To Your Health

Dr. Barbara

Glyphosate Implicated as Driver of Modern Diseases including Celiac Disease.

In recent months, I have learned some very disturbing truths about glyphosate the active ingredient in Monsanto's broad-spectrum herbicide called Roundup, which  generally applied to genetically modified (GMO) Roundup Ready crops like wheat, corn ,soy and alfalfa. 

GMO crops are engineered to withstand extremely high levels of Roundup or BT toxin so as to not perish with the weeds. And so these crops are usually more contaminated with glyphosate or BT toxin than regular crops. Wheat crops sometimes get an extra dose after harvest but before shipping, called desiccation or ripening.

In November of 2013, a peer-reviewed report authored by Anthony Samsel, and Dr. Stephanie Seneff,  a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reveals how glyphosate starts a sequence of events in humans that is so destructive to health that it has been called the "driver of modern diseases". 

I urge you to read the whole report called Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases ll: Celiac Sprue and Gluten Intolerance. It shows how all the features of celiac disease can be explained by glyphosates known properties.

These include:

1. the disruption of Shikimate pathways. 

2. Altering the balance between pathogens and beneficial biota in the gut. 

3.Chelating transition metals  as well as sulphur and selenium and 

4. Inhibiting cytochrome P450 enzymes

The authors argue that a key system wide pathology in celiac disease is impaired sulphate supply to the tissues and that this is a key component of glyphosate toxicity to humans.

Dr. Seneff states in an interview with Dr. Mercola: (my bold)

“Glyphosate’s claimed mechanism of action in plants is the disruption of the shikimate pathway… The currently accepted dogma is that glyphosate is not harmful to humans or to any mammals because the shikimate pathway is absent in all animals.

However, this pathway is present in gut bacteria, which play an important and heretofore largely overlooked role in human physiology through an integrated biosemiotic relationship with the human host. In addition to aiding digestion, the gut microbiota synthesize vitamins, detoxify xenobiotics, and participate in immune system homeostasis and gastrointestinal tract permeability. Furthermore, dietary factors modulate the microbial composition of the gut.”


And describing the connection to the bowel, where the most damage occurs, and may even trigger gluten sensitivity, Dr. Mercola continues:

Remember, the bacteria in your body outnumber your cells by 10 to 1. For every cell in your body, you have 10 microbes of various kinds, and all of them have the shikimate pathway, so they will all respond to the presence of glyphosate! It causes extreme disruption of the microbe’s function and lifecycle; worse yet, glyphosate preferentially affects beneficial bacteria, allowing pathogens to overgrow. At that point, your body also has to contend with the toxins produced by the pathogens. Once the chronic inflammation sets in, you're well on your way toward chronic and potentially debilitating disease. 

In a nutshell, Dr. Seneff has summarized the two key problems caused by glyphosate in the diet as:

Nutritional deficiencies
Systemic toxicity

She believes glyphosate is possibly the most important factor in the development of multiple chronic diseases and conditions that have become prevalent in Westernized societies, including but not limited to:

Autism                                              

Gastrointestinal diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, chronic diarrhea, colitis and Crohn’s disease 

Obesity
Allergies 

Cardiovascular disease 

Depression
Cancer 

Infertility 

Alzheimer’s disease
Parkinson’s disease  and other neurological disorders such as Multiple sclerosis, and  ALS

And more.

The authors argue that glyphosate residues, found in most commonly consumed foods in the US, “enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease.”

Perfect Storm

The average person in North America has seen their vitamin D3 serum levels decline to deficiency states since the 40's. And vitamin D3 protects the bowel but also 2,000 genes and their expression. We have a perfect storm with the combination of low vitamin D3 which makes a phenotype susceptible to many "diseases", alien modern wheat , and chemicals with unknown and known horrifying properties. No wonder we have so many health problems. 

The good news is that we can make some choices that improve our health. One would be to eat only organic foods as a way to avoid glyphosate and BT toxin. (eliminate corn from your supplements and drugs, except for non- GMO corn).

Drink clean water: reverse osmosis or distilled.

Get some exercise: 30 minutes to 1 hour 3- 6 times a week.

Another is to find out what your serum level of vitamin D3 is and take enough vitamin D3 to have the level about 100 nmol/l (over 120 is best) or 40 ng/ml.

And get some "RAYS",  UV B of course. 

To Your Health

Dr. Barbara