Author: Dr. Mercola

Air Pollution Is Becoming More Dangerous

388200 04: Toxic smoke blows over downtown Long Beach, CA, April 23, 2001 from a fire at the Tosco oil refinery in Carson, 15 miles south of Los Angeles. The refinery was running at full capacity, around 125,000 barrels of oil per day, when a blaze broke out in the ''coker'' unit, where petroleum coke is burned in the making of gasoline. Lost production could add to the recent spike in gasoline prices, which analysts say could hit $3 a gallon or more. The Queen Mary ship is visible behind buildings, lower left. (Photo by David McNew/Newsmakers)

(Dr. Mercola) Pollution has been named the “largest environmental cause of disease and premature death in the world today” by a collaboration of more than 40 researchers looking at data from 130 countries. The study, published in The Lancet, revealed that 9 million premature deaths were caused by pollution in 2015, which is 16 percent of deaths worldwide — “three times more deaths than from AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined and 15 times more than from all wars and other forms of violence,” the researchers wrote.1

Virtually all of the deaths (92 percent) occurred in low- and middle-income countries where, in the most polluted regions, pollution-related disease caused more than 1 in 4 deaths. That being said, pollution isn’t stagnant; it moves from one country to the next, to the extent that a sizable amount of air pollution in the western U.S. comes from China, for example. Still, as Popular Science noted, “In a classic case of what-goes-around-comes around, some 20 percent of China’s air pollution stems from the manufacturing of products for the United States.”2

Related: Detox Cheap and Easy Without Fasting – Recipes Included

Air Pollution Is the Leading Pollution Killer

While water, soil and chemical pollution accounted for some of the pollution-related deaths, the majority — 6.5 million — were caused by airborne contaminants. Both indoor air pollution, particularly from household cooking and burning wood for heat, and outdoor pollution, including from coal-fired power plants and vehicle emissions, were problematic.

Fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) refers to dust, dirt, soot and smoke — particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter. It’s the most studied type of air pollution. These particulates can enter your system and cause chronic inflammation, which in turn increases your risk of a number of health problems, from cancer to heart and lung disease.

In the case of heart disease, fine particulate air pollution may increase your risk by inducing atherosclerosis, increasing oxidative stress and increasing insulin resistance, the researchers noted, adding:3

“The strongest causal associations are seen between PM 2.5 pollution and cardiovascular and pulmonary disease. Specific causal associations have been established between PM 2.5 pollution and myocardial infarction, hypertension, congestive heart failure, arrhythmias and cardiovascular mortality.

Causal associations have also been established between PM 2.5 pollution and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has reported that airborne particulate matter and ambient air pollution are proven group 1 human carcinogens.”

The health effects of air pollution don’t stop there, however, as the study cited emerging evidence showing that PM 2.5 may play a role in a number of diseases you probably wouldn’t automatically associate with air pollution, including:4

Diabetes Decreased cognitive function Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
Autism Neurodegenerative disease including dementia Premature birth
Low birthweight Sudden infant death syndrome
Related: How to Detoxify and Heal the Lymphatic System

Research presented at the American Thoracic Society (ATS) 2017 International Conference even suggested poor air quality may disrupt your sleep.5 The study looked closely at the effects of two widespread pollutants, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which is traffic-related air pollution and PM 2.5, which is responsible for reduced visibility. Both of the pollutants had an influence on study participants’ sleep efficiency, which is a measure of the time spent actually sleeping as opposed to lying in bed awake.

The people in the top quarter of NO2 exposure were 60 percent more likely to have low sleep efficiency over a five-year period compared to those in the lowest quarter. Among those exposed to the highest levels of fine-particle pollution, there was a 50 percent increased likelihood of low sleep efficiency.

Considering the health repercussions of lack of sleep, this is yet another way that air pollution can devastate your health. Further, pollution is only worsening in many parts of the world, the researchers noted, and without aggressive intervention deaths due to ambient air pollution could increase by more than 50 percent by 2050, they said.

Coal Combustion Remains a Major Polluter

The majority of global airborne particulate pollution — 85 percent — comes from fuel combustion, with coal being the “world’s most polluting fossil fuel.”6 Even in the U.S., an estimated 200,000 premature deaths are caused by combustion emissions, including that from vehicles and power generation.7

Must Read: Heal Cavities, Gum Disease, Naturally with Organic Oral Care – Toothpaste recipes included

In a study of electric power generation in the U.S., which is coal-intensive, a study published in the journal Energy revealed that switching to natural gas for electricity generation could lead to significant benefits.8 Study author Jay Apt, a professor at Tepper School of Business, Engineering and Public Policy and co-director of Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote in The Conversation:9

“Switching from coal to natural gas would reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by more than 90 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions by more than 60 percent. These compounds are major causes of fine particulate pollution. Reductions on this level would lower the total cost of national annual human health damages by US$20 billion to $50 billion annually. We found that the Southeast and the Ohio Valley, where most of the coal is burned, would capture the lion’s share of these benefits.”

The Lancet authors, while citing a benefit in shifting the energy sector from coal-fired plants to gas-fired plants, took it a step further, noting that an even better solution would be shifting to low-polluting renewable energy sources such as wind, tidal, geothermal and solar options. “These interventions not only reduce pollution and improve the cardiorespiratory health of entire populations, but they will also sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and increase the efficiency of electricity generation,” they wrote.10

Industrialized Farming Is Another Major Source of Air Pollution

Another major cause of air pollution in much of the U.S., China, Russia and Europe is linked to farming and fertilizer — specifically to the nitrogen component of fertilizer used to supposedly enrich the soil and grow bigger crops.11 Research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters even demonstrated that in certain densely populated areas, emissions from farming far outweigh other sources of particulate matter air pollution.12 As nitrogen fertilizers break down into their component parts, ammonia is released into the air.

Ammonia is one of the byproducts of fertilizer and animal waste. When the ammonia in the atmosphere reaches industrial areas, it combines with pollution from diesel and petroleum combustion, creating microparticles. Concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) workers and neighboring residents alike report higher incidence of asthma, headaches, eye irritation and nausea.

Research published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine also revealed that markers of lung function were related to how far they lived from CAFOs.13 The closer they lived to the factory farms, and the greater the density of livestock, the more impairments in lung function were revealed. Lung function of neighboring residents declined in concert with increased levels of CAFO-caused ammonia air pollution, the study revealed.14

What You Eat Can Help Buffer the Effects of Air Pollution

According to a 2016 World Health Organization (WHO) report, only 8 percent of people worldwide are breathing air that meets WHO standards, which means 92 percent of the world population is breathing polluted air.15 While you might not have control over the pollution levels outside your home, you do have control over what you eat.

Related: Start Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet

The latter is good news, because certain dietary measures can have a protective effect. Overall, you should strive to eat a diet of whole foods, rich in anti-inflammatory vegetables and healthy fats. Among the most important dietary interventions to try include:16

  • Omega-3 fats: They’re anti-inflammatory, and in a study of 29 middle-aged people, taking an animal-based omega-3 fat supplement reduced some of the adverse effects to heart health and lipid levels, including triglycerides, that occurred with exposure to air pollution (olive oil did not have the same effect).17
  • Broccoli sprouts: Broccoli-sprout extract was shown to prevent the allergic nasal response that occurs upon exposure to particles in diesel exhaust, such that the researchers suggested broccoli or broccoli sprouts could have a protective effect on air pollution’s role in allergic disease and asthma.18 A broccoli-sprout beverage even enhanced the detoxification of some airborne pollutants among residents of a highly polluted region of China.19
  • Vitamins C and E: Among children with asthma, antioxidant supplementation including vitamins C and E helped to buffer the impact of ozone exposure on their small airways.20
  • B vitamins: A small-scale human trial found high doses of vitamins B6, B9 and B12 in combination completely offset damage caused by very fine particulate matter in air pollution.21 Four weeks of high-dose supplementation reduced genetic damage in 10 gene locations by 28 to 76 percent, protected mitochondrial DNA from the harmful effects of pollution, and even helped repair some of the genetic damage.

How to Reduce Air Pollution in Your Home

Attention to proper indoor air quality is important, and purifying your home’s air is a good start. Commercially purchased air filters may change measurements of health, include lowering the amount of C-reactive protein and other measurements of inflammation and blood vessel function.22 However, not all filters work with the same efficiency to remove pollutants from your home, and no one filter can remove all pollutants, so be sure to do your research on the different types of air filters to meet your specific needs.

Photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) is one of the best technologies available. Rather than filtering the air, PCO actually acts as an air purifier, cleaning the air using ultraviolet (UV) light. Unlike filters, which simply trap pollutants, PCO transforms the pollutants into nontoxic substances. Typically, this occurs when the UV light reacts with a titanium dioxide film and water, creating hydroxyl radicals that essentially oxidize the pollutants, rendering them harmless.

Research has shown that, in the presence of air pollutants from building materials and furniture, PCO improves indoor air quality based on both sensory assessments made by study participants as well as measurements such as Proton-Transfer-Reaction Mass Spectrometry (PTR-MS).23 Beyond PCO, another option is to add house plants, which help to absorb indoor air pollution.

Further, one of the simplest and easiest ways to reduce the pollution count in your home is to open the windows and let some fresh air in (assuming the outdoor air isn’t overly polluted). Because most homes have little air leakage, opening the windows for as little as 15 minutes every day can improve the quality of the air you’re breathing. You may also want to consider cracking the window at night while you sleep. Installing an attic fan is another way of bringing fresh air into your home and reducing your toxic load from air pollutants.

1,200 Percent Increase of Weed Killer in Your Body

(Dr. Mercola) Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, is the most heavily used agricultural chemical of all time. In the U.S., over 1.6 billion kilograms of the chemical have been applied since 1974, with researchers stating that, in 2014 alone, farmers sprayed enough glyphosate to apply 0.8 pound per acre on every 2.47 acres of U.S. cultivated cropland along with 0.47 pounds/acre on all cropland globally.1

It’s a mind-boggling amount of usage for one agricultural chemical, and it was only a matter of time before the wide-reaching environmental and public health implications became apparent.

Monsanto advertised Roundup as “biodegradable” and “environmentally friendly,” even going so far as to claim it “left the soil clean” — until they were found guilty of false advertising because the chemical is actually dangerous to the environment.2 It’s also increasingly showing up in people, at alarming levels, with unknown effects on human health.

Study Reveals 1,200 Percent Increase in Glyphosate Levels

Researchers from University of California San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine tested urine levels of glyphosate and its metabolite aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) among 100 people living in Southern California over a period of 23 years — from 1993 to 2016.3The starting year is noteworthy, because in 1994 genetically engineered (GE) crops were introduced in the U.S.

Glyphosate is used in large quantities on GE glyphosate-tolerant crops (i.e., Roundup Ready varieties), and its use increased nearly fifteenfold since 1996.4 Glyphosate is also a popular tool for desiccating (or accelerating the drying out) of crops like wheat and oats, with the UCSD researchers noting in JAMA that Roundup is “applied as a desiccant to most small non-genetically modified grains.” So for both the GE crops and non-GE grains, glyphosate “is found in these crops at harvest.”

Related: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

At the start of the study, Paul Mills, professor of family medicine and public health at the University of California San Diego, stated that very few of the participants had detectable levels of glyphosate in their urine, but by 2016, 70 percent of them did.5 Overall, the prevalence of human exposure to glyphosate increased by 500 percent during the study period while actual levels of the chemical, in ug/ml, increased by a shocking 1,208 percent.6

It’s unknown what this means for human health but, in 2017, separate research revealed that daily exposure to ultra-low levels of glyphosate for two years led to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in rats.7 Mills stated that the glyphosate levels revealed by their JAMA study were 100-fold greater than those detected in the rat study.

In response to the featured study, Monsanto was quick to say that the amounts reported “do not raise health concerns,” and that the fact that the chemical is detected in urine is just “one way our bodies get rid of nonessential substances.”8 Speaking to GM Watch, Michael Antoniou of King’s College London had another take on the matter:9

“This is the first study to longitudinally track urine levels of glyphosate over a period before and after the introduction of GM glyphosate-tolerant crops. It is yet another example illustrating that the vast majority of present-day Americans have readily detectable levels of glyphosate in their urine, ranging from 0.3 parts per billion, as in this study, to ten times higher – 3 or more parts per billion – detected by others.

These results are worrying because there is increasing evidence to show that exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides below regulatory safety limits can be harmful.”

While the JAMA study did not look into potential health ramifications of their findings, follow-up studies, including one tracking liver problems, are planned. Mills is even heading up UCSD’s Herbicide Awareness & Research Project, which is aiming to reveal the health-related effects of GE foods and the herbicides applied to them.10

EU Votes in Support of Banning Glyphosate

Concerns over glyphosate’s toxicity have been mounting since the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC) 2015 determination that glyphosate is a “probable carcinogen.” As of July 2017, California’s Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) also listed glyphosate as a chemical known to cause cancer under Proposition 65, which requires consumer products with potential cancer-causing ingredients to bear warning labels.

Related: Understanding and Detoxifying Genetically Modified Foods

Meanwhile, in the EU, European Commission leaders met in March 2016 to vote on whether to renew a 15-year license for glyphosate, which was set to expire in June of that year. The decision was tabled amid mounting opposition, as more than 180,000 Europeans signed a petition calling for glyphosate to be banned outright. Ultimately, more than 2 million signatures were collected against relicensing the chemical.

In June 2016, however, the European Commission granted an 18-month extension to glyphosate while they continued the review. In October 2017, the European Parliament voted in favor of phasing out glyphosate over the next five years and immediately banning it for household use. As EcoWatch reported, Nathan Donley, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity noted:11

“This wasn’t just a vote against glyphosate. This was a vote supporting independent science and a vote against an industry that has manipulated, coerced and otherwise soiled independent decision-making in Europe and the rest of the world.”

Monsanto Manipulation Continues

The increasing concerns over glyphosate come as Monsanto’s reputation continues on a steady decline. For starters, in October 2017 members in the European Parliament (MEPs) announced that Monsanto officials would no longer be able to meet MEPs, attend committee meetings or even use “digital resources” in Brussels or Strasbourg parliament premises, essentially banning them from parliament.12

Recommended: How to Detoxify From Antibiotics and Other Chemical Antimicrobials

The blow came after the biotech giant refused to attend a hearing organized by environment and agriculture committees over allegations that Monsanto engaged in regulatory interference, by influencing studies into the safety of glyphosate. One study in question was conducted by Gilles-Eric Séralini. The lifetime feeding study, published in 2012, revealed numerous shocking problems in rats fed GMO corn, including massive tumors and early death. Rats given glyphosate in their drinking water also developed tumors.

The following year, the publisher retracted the study saying it “did not meet scientific standards,” even though a long and careful investigation found no errors or misrepresentation of data. Interestingly enough, in the time between the publication of the study and its retraction, the journal had created a new position — associate editor for biotechnology; a position that was filled by a former Monsanto employee. The editor of the journal that retracted the study was also reportedly paid by Monsanto.

As GM Watch reported, “Emails released show that Monsanto was active in the retraction process, though it tried to hide its involvement.”13 Séralini not only republished the study in another journal, he also took legal action, and at the end of 2015, he won two court cases against some of those who tried to destroy his career and reputation. It’s also become clear that the company may have worked with a U.S. EPA official to stop glyphosate investigations.

Email correspondence showed Jess Rowland, who at the time was the EPA’s deputy division director of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention and chair of the Cancer Assessment Review Committee (CARC), helped stop a glyphosate investigation by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, on Monsanto’s behalf.

In an email, Monsanto regulatory affairs manager Dan Jenkins recounts a conversation he’d had with Rowland, in which Rowland said, “If I can kill this I should get a medal,”14 referring to the ATSDR investigation, which did not end up occurring.

Monsanto Fights to Put Even More Poison on Food

As if the environmental assault by glyphosate wasn’t enough, Monsanto has now released Roundup Ready Xtend for cotton and soybeans, which are GE plants designed to tolerate both glyphosate and another herbicide, dicamba. Dicamba has been used by farmers for decades, but the release of Roundup Ready Xtend crops prompted its use to become more widespread, as well as used in a different way, now sprayed over the top of the GE cotton and soy, where it can easily volatilize and drift onto nearby fields.15

Related: The Difference Between Heirlooms, Hybrids, and GMOs

Monsanto sold dicamba-tolerant cotton and soybean seeds to farmers before the herbicide designed to go with them (which is supposedly less prone to drifting) had gotten federal approval. In 2016, when farmers sprayed their new GE crops with older, illegal formulas of dicamba, and it drifted over onto their neighbors’ non-dicamba-resistant crops, devastating crop damage was reported in 10 states.16

Newer dicamba formulations are supposedly less prone to drifting, but this hasn’t stopped the onslaught of reports of dicamba damage, not only to cropland but also to trees. Glyphosate-resistant superweeds like pigweed are now driving farmers to seek out dicamba-resistant crops, but dicamba-resistant weeds have already sprouted in Kansas and Nebraska, raising serious doubts that piling more pesticides on crops will help farmers.

Monsanto, meanwhile, is already facing a slew of lawsuits over their dicamba-tolerant crops and resulting dicamba-damaged crops nearby, but is still set to enjoy the profits not only of farmers buying their GE seeds because they want to, but also those buying them out of fear of what will happen to their crops if they don’t.

Monsanto even held a “dicamba summit” in September 2017 near its headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, hoping to gain approval from more scientists about its damaging weed killer, but of the approximately 60 people invited, only about half attended. University of Missouri plant sciences professor Kevin Bradley, who’s been tracking crop damage due to dicamba sprayings across the U.S., was among those who declined to attend, citing the company’s unwillingness to discuss volatilization.17

According to Bradley, a past president of the Weed Science Society of America, as of August 2017, an estimated 3.1 million acres across the eastern half of the United States had been damaged by dicamba drift,18 and after he spoke out about his findings, Monsanto executives started to call his supervisors. He told WNCW, “What the exact nature of all of those calls were, I’m not real sure, but I’m pretty sure that it has something to do with not being happy with what I was saying.”19

How Much Glyphosate Is in Your Body?

Laboratory testing commissioned by the organizations Moms Across America and Sustainable Pulse revealed that glyphosate is now showing up virtually everywhere. The analysis revealed glyphosate in levels of 76 μg/L to 166 μg/L in women’s breast milk. As reported by The Detox Project, this is 760 to 1,600 times higher than the EU-permitted level in drinking water (although it’s lower than the U.S. maximum contaminant level for glyphosate, which is 700 μg/L.).20

This dose of glyphosate in breastfed babies’ every meal is only the beginning. An in vitro study designed to simulate human exposures also found that glyphosate crosses the placental barrier. In the study, 15 percent of the administered glyphosate reached the fetal compartment.21 Glyphosate has also been detected in a number of popular foods, including oatmeal, coffee creamer, eggs and cereal, such as Cheerios.

Related: Dicamba – The Herbicide Monsanto is Promoting to Replace Roundups Glyphosate

If you’d like to know your personal glyphosate levels, you can now find out, while also participating in a worldwide study on environmental glyphosate exposures. The Health Research Institute (HRI) in Iowa developed the glyphosate urine test kit, which will allow you to determine your own exposure to this toxic herbicide.

Ordering this kit automatically allows you to participate in the study and help HRI better understand the extent of glyphosate exposure and contamination. In a few weeks, you will receive your results, along with information on how your results compare with others and what to do to help reduce your exposure. We are providing these kits to you at no profit in order for you to participate in this environmental study.

In the meantime, eating organic as much as possible and investing in a good water filtration system for your home are among the best ways to lower your exposure to glyphosate and other pesticides. In the case of glyphosate, it’s also wise to avoid desiccated crops like wheat and oats.

Study Proves Sugar Is Responsible for Remarkable Rate of Disease

(Dr. Mercola) Refined sugar was not consumed on a daily basis until the past 100 years. Before that, it was a treat afforded only by the very rich as sugar cane was a difficult crop to grow. In the past 100 years, rates of obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and numerous other chronic diseases have skyrocketed.

When sugar and tobacco were introduced by Native Americans to Europeans as they began to settle America, the average life span was relatively short.1 This meant health consequences from sugar and tobacco were easily buried in the myriad of other life challenges the early settlers faced.

Must Read: Healthy Sugar ALternatives and More

As early as the 1920s, research documented the damage sugar does to your body. To this day, tobacco continues to be a leading a cause of premature death.2 Unfortunately, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) call tobacco the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., that title may well belong to sugar. Yet people who would never consider smoking may have little concern over the amount of sugar and starch eaten each day.

From a nutritional standpoint, your body does not need refined sugar. Although you need glucose, your body manufactures the glucose it needs in your liver through a process called gluconeogenesis. If you never ate another morsel of candy, sugar or starch again, you would live quite comfortably and likely in far better health.

Sugar Feeds the Growth of Cancer Cells

Recent research reported in this short news video demonstrates that the amount of sugar you eat each day should be an important consideration in your nutritional plan. In 1926, German biochemist Otto Warburg observed cancer cells fermented glucose to lactic acid, even in the presence of oxygen (known as the Warburg effect), and theorized it might be the fundamental cause of cancer.3 This led to the idea that tumor growth could be disturbed by cutting off the energy supply, namely sugar.

Must Read: Start Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet

For decades, scientists and researchers dismissed the idea, and the sugar industry backed them up. Warburg received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1931 for his work in cellular respiration and energy production. His life’s mission was to find a cure for cancer, but his findings were largely ignored by the conventional medical community as they were considered simplistic and didn’t fit the genetic model of disease that was widely accepted.

Recent research from Belgium4 shows there is indeed a strong link between glucose overstimulation and mutated proteins often found inside human tumor cells, which make the cells grow faster.5 The study began in 2008, triggered by the researchers’ desire to gain a greater understanding of the Warburg effect.

The rapid breakdown of glucose in tumor cells is not seen in healthy cells, making glucose the primary energy source for cancer. Researcher Johan Thevelein, Ph.D., a molecular biologist from LU Leuven in Belgium, commented on the results of the study in a press release, saying:6

“Our research reveals how the hyperactive sugar consumption of cancerous cells leads to a vicious cycle of continued stimulation of cancer development and growth. Thus, it is able to explain the correlation between the strength of the Warburg effect and tumor aggressiveness.

This link between sugar and cancer has sweeping consequences. Our results provide a foundation for future research in this domain, which can now be performed with a much more precise and relevant focus.”

Cell Mutation Not Limited to Sugar Consumption

They’re quick to point out that while they believe the presence of added sugar in your diet may increase the aggressive growth of cancer cells, their research does not prove it triggers the original mutation.7 That said, previous research has shown that the genetic mutations found in cancer cells are actually a downstream effect caused by mitochondrial dysfunction, not the original cause, and excessive sugar consumption is one of the things that triggers mitochondrial dysfunction. I’ll discuss this more in a section below.

Must Read: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

Granted, there are thousands of manufactured chemicals in your home, car and workplace that may cause or contribute to cell mutations. Air pollution, personal care products, plastics and chemical treatments often contain chemicals with carcinogenic properties, and such exposures also play a role.

The mutation of a cell, fed by your daily sugar habit, may grow into cancer. Cell mutation from sugar consumption occurs after mitochondrial damage. However, sugar also provides nutrition to cells mutated by contaminant exposure, and is required for these mutated cells to grow and multiply. As such, your sugar intake becomes an important factor, and one that you have a great deal of control over.

Normally, energy is drawn from glucose through a process of oxidation that requires the presence of oxygen.8 But, cancer cells use a process of fermentation, even when oxygen is present, to create energy. The process, called glycolysis, extracts less energy during the process, but requires less energy and fewer steps to get energy from glucose.

This means that even in the absence of oxygen, tumor cells can extract energy from glucose molecules. Rapid cell division of cancer cells to fuel growth requires the presence of a lot of sugar. Warburg believed a defect in the mitochondria of cancer cells allows the cells to use glycolysis to fuel growth, which suggests cancer is actually a metabolic disease that is affected by your diet.

Research Supports Cancer Is a Metabolic Disease

In the U.S. an estimated 600,000 people will die from cancer this year, costing over $125 billion in health care expenses.9 The World Health Organization finds cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide, responsible for nearly 8.8 million deaths in 2015.10Imagine if that many people were dying each year from the flu or polio. This would be headline news each day. Have we become so used to the idea of cancer that 1.6 million new cases every year in the U.S. is old news?

Must Read: Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones

Conventional cancer treatment focuses on surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. However, many of these treatments have only been successful at lengthening lives by months and not in curing the disease. The basis for these treatments is that cancer is a genetic problem and not one triggered and fed by mitochondrial dysfunction. As a result, the nutritional link is typically overlooked.

The featured study exposes the flaw in using only pharmaceutical, surgical and radiation treatments on tumors and other cancer growths. Warburg postulated that by cutting off the food supply cancer cells rely on for survival, you effectively starve them.

Research has also shown that genetic mutations are not the trigger for cancer growths but rather a downstream effect resulting from defective energy metabolism in cell mitochondria. This defective energy metabolism changes the way your cells function and promotes the growth of cancer cells.

In other words, if your mitochondria remain healthy, your risk of developing cancer is slim. Thomas Seyfried, Ph.D., author of “Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management and Treatment of Cancer,” has received many awards and honors through his long and illustrious career for the work he’s done expanding knowledge of how metabolism affects cancer.

He is one of the pioneers in the application of nutritional ketosis for cancer. While in nutritional ketosis, your body burns fat for fuel instead of starches and carbohydrates. By eating a healthy high-fat, low-carbohydrate and low- to moderate-protein diet, your body begins to burn fat as its primary fuel. Research from Ohio State University demonstrates athletes who eat a ketogenic diet experience significant improvements in their health and performance.11

Nutritional ketosis is also showing great promise in the treatment of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease,12 Type 2 diabetes13 and seizures14 that are unresponsive to medications. This recent research from Belgium confirms the work Warburg, Seyfried and others have done, and supports the hypothesis that cancer is a metabolically based disease and not a genetic problem.

Chemotherapy May Not Be the Answer

Traditional administration of chemotherapy may increase your risk of metastasis (the spread of cancer cells through your body) and may trigger additional tumor growth. Chemotherapy is sometimes recommended prior to surgery to help shrink the size of the tumor, increasing the likelihood a woman could have a lumpectomy instead of a full mastectomy.

Must Read: How to Detoxify From Chemotherapy and Repair the Body

Recent research reveals that giving chemotherapy prior to breast cancer surgery may promote metastasis of the disease, allowing it to spread to other areas of your body.15 This greatly increases the risk of dying. The study found that mice had twice the amount of cancer cells in their blood and lungs after treatment with chemotherapy. The researchers also found similar results in 20 human patients whose tumor microenvironments became more favorable to metastasis after chemotherapy.

Other studies in men with prostate cancer have demonstrated chemotherapy may cause DNA damage in healthy cells that boosts tumor growth and helps the cancer cells resist treatment.16 Research continues to reveal the effect chemotherapy has on your body and the devastating effect it has on healthy cells. At least as far back as 2004, researchers have known that “chemotherapy only makes a minor contribution to cancer survival.”17

Your Healthiest Choice Is to Avoid Sugar

Sugar is a primary factor driving the development of a number of different health conditions and chronic diseases. Sugar contributes to several of the leading causes of death in the U.S., including:18

Heart disease Hypertension Atherosclerosis Cancer
Stroke Diabetes Chronic liver disease Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease19

While all forms of sugar are harmful when consumed in excess, processed fructose — the most commonly found sugar in processed foods — appears to be the worst. Manufacturers use the addictive property of sugar to drive sales, and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) allows them to achieve their goals at a lower price. Although it tastes like sugar, HFCS gives your body a bigger sugar jolt. Dr. Yulia Johnson, family medicine physician with The Iowa Clinic, comments on the use of HFCS:20

“Your body processes high fructose corn syrup differently than it does ordinary sugar. The burden falls on your liver, which is not capable of keeping up with how quickly corn syrup breaks down. As a result, blood sugar spikes quicker. It’s stored as fat, so you can become obese and develop other health problems, such as diabetes, much faster.”

It stands to reason that if you want to live a healthier life and reduce your health care costs and your risk for cancer, you’d be wise to avoid refined sugar as much as possible, if not eliminate it from your diet entirely.

Eating real food (ideally organic), following a high-fat, low-carb, moderate-protein diet described in “Fat for Fuel,” and fasting are all things you can do to optimize your health and reduce your risk of chronic disease. For inspiring stories of others who have used a ketogenic diet to stabilize their health, read my article, “Promoting Advances in Managing Cancer as a Metabolic Disease Need Your Support.”

If you do pick up packaged foods, read the labels carefully so you can make an informed decision about the sugar you’re adding to your diet. Sugars may masquerade under several different names on food labels. Some of the more common names are listed below, but there are more than are listed here.

Labels list ingredients in order of the amount in the product. In other words, there is more of the first ingredient than the second, and so forth. When evaluating sugar, remember if it is listed in the fourth, sixth and ninth positions, the combined total may put it in the first or second position.21

Fruit juice concentrate Evaporated cane juice Cane juice crystals Blackstrap molasses
Buttered syrup Fruit juice Honey Carob syrup
Caramel Brown rice syrup Corn syrup solids Florida crystal
Golden syrup Maple syrup Molasses Refiner’s syrup
Sorghum syrup Sucanat Treacle Turbinado
Barley malt Corn syrup Dextrin Dextrose
Diastatic malt Ethyl maltol Glucose Glucose solids
Lactose Malt Syrup Maltose D-ribose
Rice syrup Galactose Maltodextrin Castor

New Finding: Broccoli Helps Heal Leaky Gut

(Dr. Mercola) Broccoli, a close relative of Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower, is perhaps most well-known for its chemoprotective properties. It’s an excellent source of phytonutrient glucosinolates, flavonoids and other health-boosting antioxidant and anticancer compounds. One of the compounds in broccoli known to have anticancer activity is sulforaphane, a naturally occurring organic sulfur.

Studies have shown sulforaphane supports normal cell function and division while causing apoptosis (programmed cell death) in colon,1prostate,2 breast3 and tobacco-induced lung cancer4 cells, and reducing the number of cancerous liver tumors in mice.5 Three servings of broccoli per week may reduce your risk of prostate cancer by more than 60 percent.6

Recommended Reading: You Need Sulforaphane – How and Why to Grow Broccoli Sprouts

Its beneficial effects on obesity, Type 2 diabetes and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) have also been highlighted in a number of studies. Researchers have now identified yet another major health benefit of this cruciferous vegetable: a healthy gut. In fact, researchers suggest broccoli can be very helpful in the treatment of colitis and leaky gut.7,8,9,10 As reported by CBS:11

“The Penn State study was carried out with mice, who were found to be much more capable of tolerating digestive issues than those who weren’t put on a broccoli diet. The scientists added that the results could be a breakthrough for humans, as digestive problems can reportedly lead to other severe issues.”

Broccoli Helps Heal a Leaky Gut

What they discovered is that when you eat broccoli, a compound called indolocarbazole (ICZ) is produced, which catalyzes a healthy balance not only in your gut but also in your immune system, as the two are intricately connected. In this study, 15 percent of the animals’ diet was swapped out for raw broccoli, equating to a human eating 3.5 cups of broccoli per day.

Admittedly, that’s quite a bit of broccoli, but the researchers note you can obtain an equivalent amount of ICZ from a single cup of Brussels sprouts, as they contain three times the ICZ of broccoli. Earlier studies had confirmed that one of the health benefits of broccoli is its ability to quench inflammation, so it makes sense it would be helpful for gastrointestinal (GI) inflammation as well.

Leaky gut is a condition that occurs due to the development of gaps between the cells (enterocytes) that make up the membrane lining your intestinal wall. These tiny gaps allow substances such as undigested food, bacteria and metabolic wastes that should be confined to your digestive tract to escape into your bloodstream.

Once the integrity of your intestinal lining is compromised, allowing toxic substances to enter your bloodstream, your body experiences a significant increase in inflammation. Your immune system may also become confused and begin to attack your own body as if it were an enemy — a hallmark of autoimmunity disorders.

Chronic inflammation in your body can also contribute and/or lead to other health conditions such as arthritis and heart disease. While leaky gut syndrome is primarily associated with inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis and celiac disease, even healthy people can have varying degrees of intestinal permeability leading to a wide variety of health symptoms, and this can be significantly influenced by your diet.

Removing lectins from your diet will also go a long way to healing a leaky gut. You can learn more about the details of this in the previous interview I did with Dr. Steven Gundry, who wrote the book “The Plant Paradox.”

Recommended Reading: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

How Broccoli Improves Gut Function

A key component of a healthy gut is having good barrier function to prevent particles from escaping from your intestinal tract into your bloodstream. Receptors located on the lining of your gut wall called aryl hydrocarbon receptors (AHRs) play a vital role in maintaining a well-functioning barrier. One of their primary jobs is to trigger a reaction when toxins are detected.

As mentioned, broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables contain glucosinolate compounds, which are broken down into ICZ and other byproducts during digestion in your stomach. By binding to and activating AHR, ICZ helps boost your immune function and improve the balance of the microbiome in your gut.

The compound sulforaphane also inhibits inflammation by reducing damaging reactive oxygen species (ROS) by as much as 73 percent.12 Sulforaphane is also an immune stimulant,13 so broccoli beneficially influences your immune function in more ways than one.

Interestingly, excessive activation of AHR will have an opposite, detrimental effect. According to the researchers in the featured study, dioxin activates this receptor, but in this case the resulting hyperactivation triggers toxicity. Lead author Gary Perdew, professor of agricultural sciences, said,14 “What we were interested in is: Could you locally activate the receptor naturally at a level that would cause only modest AHR activation in the gut, but not cause systemic activation, which could possibly lead to negative effects?”

The answer, as you may have guessed, is yes, you can — with cruciferous vegetables. Importantly, broccoli and other sulfur-rich cruciferous vegetables also improve detoxification, which is another important factor that influences your health, including your gut health. Broccoli sprouts, in particular, have been shown to help detox environmental pollutants such as benzene.15,16,17  As noted by The World’s Healthiest Foods:18

“… [S]ulforaphane increases the activity of the liver’s phase 2 detoxification enzymes. These enzymes … are well-known for their ability to clear a wide variety of toxic compounds from the body including not only many carcinogens, but also many reactive oxygen species, a particularly nasty type of free radical.

By jump-starting these important detoxification enzymes, compounds in crucifers provide protection against cell mutations … and numerous other harmful effects that would otherwise be caused by these toxins.”

The Importance of Fiber for Healthy Gut Function

Broccoli and other members of this family are also good sources of fiber — another important ingredient for good gut health. Fiber helps nourish your gut microbiome to strengthen your immune function and reduce your risk of inflammatory diseases.19 Fiber also activates a gene called T-bet, which is essential for producing immune cells in the lining of your digestive tract.20

These immune cells, called innate lymphoid cells (ILCs), help maintain balance between immunity and inflammation in your body and produce interleukin-22, a hormone that helps protect your body from pathogenic bacteria. ILCs even help resolve cancerous lesions and prevent the development of bowel cancers and other inflammatory diseases.

Recommended Reading: Raw Cruciferous Vegetables Prevent Cancer

Broccoli Has Many Valuable Health Benefits

As you can see, the benefits of broccoli are significant, making it well worth adding a few spears and/or broccoli sprouts to your meals on a regular basis. Doing so has been shown to:21

Boost mitochondrial health and energy metabolism via nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), an enzyme in broccoli that your body needs to produce nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD).

NAD may slow age-related decline in health by restoring your metabolism to more youthful levels22,23,24 Once in your system, NMN is quickly converted into NAD

 Aid with weight loss. Sulforaphane has been shown to slow weight gain, especially the accumulation of dangerous visceral fat, by speeding up tissue browning, a heat-generating type of fat that burns energy rather than storing it, and decreasing gut bacteria associated with obesity25,26,27
Boost overall immune function, thanks to compounds such as diindolylmethane (DIM). DIM has also been shown to be a valuable player in the prevention and treatment of cancer28,29 Lower your risk for atherosclerosis and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, thanks to phenolic compounds that reduce free radicals
Improve digestion and gut health, courtesy of significant amounts of fiber and AHR-activating ICZ Support eye health, thanks to high levels of the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin
Benefit your skin, as sulforaphane helps repair skin damage Fight allergies, thanks to the flavonoid kaempferol
Provide important vitamins and minerals, including magnesium, potassium, calcium, protein and vitamin C Help reduce blood sugar levels, as it contains both soluble fiber and chromium
Support heart health and help prevent thickening of your arteries Reduce your risk of developing NAFLD by lowering triglyceride levels in your liver30,31
Reduce inflammation, which is at the root of many chronic diseases, including asthma, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease32,33,34 Improve Type 2 diabetes by lowering blood glucose levels and improving gene expression in your liver35,36

How to Get the Most Out of Your Broccoli

Contrary to what you might think, the medicinal qualities of mature broccoli are actually optimized through cooking. Precision is key, however, as there’s a fine line between optimizing its nutrient content and destroying it through overcooking. Here are some tips and guidelines to help you get the most out of your broccoli:

•Adhere to ideal cooking times: Research37 shows steaming mature broccoli spears for three to four minutes will increase the available sulforaphane content by eliminating epithiospecifier protein — a heat-sensitive sulfur-grabbing protein that inactivates sulforaphane — while still retaining the enzyme myrosinase, which converts glucoraphanin to sulforaphane. The latter is important, because without myrosinase, you cannot get absorb the sulforaphane.

Make sure you do not exceed the five-minute mark, as you start losing valuable compounds beyond that point. If you opt for boiling, blanch it in boiling water for no more than 20 to 30 seconds, then immerse it in cold water to stop the cooking process.

•Eat cruciferous veggies with mustard seed powder or other myrosinase-rich food: Eating your cruciferous veggies with a myrosinase-containing food38 such as mustard seed powder, which contains a particularly resilient form of myrosinase,39 will further maximize sulforaphane content. Aside from mustard seed, other alternatives include daikon radishes, wasabi, arugula or coleslaw. Adding a myrosinase-rich food is particularly important if you eat the broccoli raw, or use frozen broccoli.

•Opt for fresh: Ideally, use raw, freshly harvested broccoli whenever possible as frozen broccoli has diminished ability to produce sulforaphane. This is because myrosinase40 is quickly destroyed during the blanching process.41 Broccoli can also lose 80 percent of its glucoraphanin — the precursor of sulforaphane — in the first 10 days after harvest.

•For recipes calling for longer cooking times, chop and wait before cooking: When a cruciferous vegetable is chopped, myrosinase is activated. So, by chopping the food and waiting about 40 minutes, the sulforaphane will have formed, allowing you to cook the food in excess of the recommended three to four minutes of steaming, or 30-second blanching, without risking sulforaphane loss.42

The reason for this is because both the precursor to sulforaphane and the sulforaphane itself are largely resistant to heat. It’s the myrosinase that gets destroyed during cooking, which then prevents the formation of sulforaphane. By allowing the sulforaphane to form before you cook it, you circumvent this chain of events. As an example, if making broccoli soup, blend the raw broccoli first; wait 40 minutes for the sulforaphane to form, then boil it.

Laboratory Testing Reveals Substantial Amounts of Glyphosate in Foods and Population

(Dr. Mercola) As food has become increasingly adulterated, contaminated and genetically engineered, the need for laboratory testing has exponentially grown. John Fagan, president of Health Research Institute Labs (HRI Labs), is an expert in this area. As explained by Fagan, HRI Labs “makes the invisible, visible, giving you the ability to see what is in your food and your environment.”

Fagan studied biochemistry and molecular biology at Cornell University, where he also got his Ph.D. After doing research for eight years at the National Institutes of Health, he went into academia and conducted cancer research using genetic engineering as a research tool. This experience is ultimately what raised his concerns about genetic engineering, especially as it pertains to food.

As a result, he created the first lab for GMO testing in the U.S., followed by labs in Europe and Japan. He’s also trained laboratories in 17 other countries in GMO testing. “What this did was make GMOs visible. Before that testing was there, nobody could tell whether those soybeans, or that corn was genetically engineered or not,” Fagan says. “After GMO testing was available, people had a choice.”

HRI Labs tests both micronutrients and toxins — the good and the bad. “We feel that the kind of testing we’re doing can open a window for you in each of those areas, so you can make better choices about the food you eat, and that you share with your family,” he says.

Testing Techniques and Equipment

There are several types of tests that can be done on a GMO food. Antigens are one type of test. DNA testing is another. Since DNA is far more stable than proteins, genetically engineered foods, even when highly processed, can be easily identified with DNA testing. A test commonly used to check DNA is the polymerase chain reaction or PCR test. Because it amplifies the DNA signal, it can detect even a single genetically engineered corn kernel in a bag containing 10,000 or more corn kernels.

The chromatograph linked to a mass spectrometer is another central piece of equipment that HRI uses. It allows you to test for a wide variety of things at very high sensitivity. Unfortunately, the cost and complexity involved prevents many labs from having this tool.

“Liquid chromatography is capable of taking a sample of food … or whatever you’re interested in, and fractionating it into hundreds of compounds, separating them out. That is then fed into a mass spectrometer; a machine that measures, ultimately, molecular weight of whatever it’s looking at.

With that you can detect — at extremely low levels and identify very specifically — almost any natural or unnatural compound … down to the parts per trillion in many cases. To give you a sense of what that means, 40 parts per trillion, which is [the limit of] detection that we have for some materials, is like if you were to take a single drop of that chemical and dilute it into 20 Olympic swimming pools full of water.

That’s the extent of dilution required to achieve 40 parts per trillion. This is extreme sensitivity. These [instruments] are like the Teslas of analytical chemistry.

[Liquid chromatography linked to a mass spectrometer] is what we use for measuring glyphosate. Because these machines are very expensive, many of the analytical labs out there don’t have access to them. Also, because it is very specialized equipment, you need somebody with a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry, or equivalent, to do this kind of testing. What we’re doing is … unique in that way.”

The Politics of Food Testing

One of the reasons we decided to collaborate with HRI Labs in testing our own supplements is because many commercial laboratories used to confirm the purity of raw materials tend to provide distorted or prejudicial information. One of the great benefits of HRI Labs, in my view, is its objectivity and ability to provide accurate data, thanks to the sensitivity of their equipment. While many labs will claim to be independent, their primary customers are big food companies.

“They don’t want to embarrass [their customers]. They don’t want to bring anything to the surface on that level, so they tend to give very superficial numbers,” Fagan says. “Typically, they work to thresholds that are established based on politics and convenience, not science and safety.

For instance, you can go to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) website, or the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website and they will say, ‘Wheat should have less than such and such amount of glyphosate in it.’

Glyphosate is … the most commonly used agrochemical, and it’s now been demonstrated to cause cancer, liver and kidney damage and birth defects. You’ll find there a number for it, but if you go to the scientific literature you discover that levels [of glyphosate] hundred or a thousand times lower … are in fact toxic to the system. For that reason, those government established thresholds are not very meaningful.”

This is a point worthy of reiteration: The use of politically-influenced safety thresholds to “prove” a food is safe is pervasive in the food industry. The only thing such safety levels accomplish is generating a false sense of security, which benefits food companies financially. HRI Labs, on the other hand, looks at the available research when establishing their threshold levels.

Recommended Reading: USDA Drops Glyphosate Testing Plans, Makes Monsanto’s Life Easier

Glyphosate Testing

One of the toxins HRI Labs is currently focusing on is glyphosate, and the public testing being offered (see below) allows them to compile data on the pervasiveness of this chemical in the food supply. When I participated in the environmental exposure test a while back, glyphosate was undetectable, which means levels in my system were below 40 parts per trillion, likely because I eat primarily organic and homegrown foods, and expel toxins I might come in contact with through exercise and regular sauna use.

“What we’re finding is there’s quite a range of levels of exposure, but that people who are eating organic generally have much lower levels. Women tend to have, on average, slightly lower levels than men. There are certain behaviors that tend to lead one to have higher levels.

For instance, it isn’t a super strong correlation, but it appears that if you are a golfer, you’re more likely to get exposed, because they use [glyphosate and other pesticides] on golf courses …

The reassuring thing is that if you … change your diet … and go to a diet that avoids things that might contain these chemicals, then within a week or two your levels of glyphosate will drop significantly. Glyphosate levels are a good indicator for guiding your dietary choices … Often people come back to us saying, ‘This changed my way of thinking about my diet.’ This is a good thing”

Glyphosate Found in Popular Ice Cream Brand

HRI Labs is often hired to test foods claiming to be non-GMO, “all natural” and/or organic. Unfortunately, many times testing reveals such claims to be untrue. A recent case in point is that of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. HRI Labs’ testing revealed their ice cream contains glyphosate. Fagan tells the story:

“Organic Consumers Association and … Regeneration Vermont were concerned about what was happening with Ben & Jerry’s. They were concerned … that the dairy producers … were not even able to get a price for their product that would cover their costs for producing the milk. There was also a concern from people in the state that the dairies were polluting the lakes, and creating problems for the Vermont tourist industry …

They wanted to look into what was going on with the quality of the milk. They sent us samples and we did some really in-depth testing using the very best methods out there.

We used triple quadrupole mass spectrometry linked to high pressure liquid chromatography to actually look at the quality of the ingredients in a product. What we found with Ben & Jerry’s ice cream was a bit shocking in that it contained substantial levels of glyphosate …

Ten of the 11 flavors we looked at contained measurable amounts of glyphosate, and at least one of them contained levels that, according to most recent research, raised questions about safety. In particular, it had been found that glyphosate at quite low levels — levels considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency and FDA — … could actually cause problems like fatty liver disease.

As you may know, there’s an epidemic of fatty liver disease in America today, and it’s linked with things like metabolic syndrome … Organic Consumers Association has been discussing those results around the country, and discussing with Ben & Jerry’s if they could do something about that.

The obvious and most logical thing for them to do is to begin to use ingredients that are organic instead of just conventional ingredients, because organic bans the use of things like glyphosate in the production of crops …”

Recommended Reading: Monsanto’s Glyphosate, Fatty Liver Disease Link Proven – Published, Peer-reviewed, Scrutinized Study

Substantial Amounts of Glyphosate Found in Many Foods

HRI Labs has investigated a number of other foods as well, including grains, legumes, and beans. Most if not all of these types of crops need to dry in the field before being harvested and to speed that process, the fields are doused with glyphosate a couple weeks before harvest. As a result of this practice, called desiccation, grain-based products, legumes and beans contain rather substantial amounts of glyphosate.

Quaker Oats,1 for example, were found to contain very high levels of glyphosate. People who regularly eat nonorganic oats also have elevated levels of the chemical in their urine. “These are the kinds of problems that are coming up out there,” Fagan says. “All that’s needed is for the grain producers to change their practices, so that they’re not spraying the fields with this weed killer immediately before they harvest it, and it will solve those problems.”

Wines also contain surprising amounts of glyphosate. As it turns out, weeds in vineyards are managed by spraying glyphosate, which ends up in the grapes as the roots of the grape vines pick it up through the soil.

“This testing … is making something that’s been invisible in our food system, visible to us,” Fagan says. “[A] vegetable like spinach that you buy in an American grocery store is going to contain, on average, eight different pesticides. That’s eight different pesticides, and you’re taking it home to feed your family without knowing that’s the case …

The reason you aren’t able to know that is because the chemical companies have done a really good job lobbying our government so that nobody in the supply chain has to talk about these … agrochemicals. The farmer doesn’t have to talk about them. The brands that are selling products made from those [raw ingredients] don’t have to talk about them. The grocery stores don’t have to. They’ve been made invisible in our food system, and that’s a big concern.

We’re doing testing using rigorous methods, the very best methods out there, the most sensitive methods out there, to make these invisible things visible, so that you know more about what’s in your food system, and in the foods you’re giving to your family. This is so important, because this allows each of us to make better choices about the food they provide to their children.”

Water and Environmental Exposure Tests Now Available

HRI Labs is unique in that they’ve created two glyphosate tests for the public — a water testing kit and an environmental exposure test kit. The environmental exposure test is a urine test that will tell you how much glyphosate you have in your system. As mentioned earlier, this will give you a good idea of the purity of your diet. If your glyphosate level is high, chances are you’ve been exposed to many other agrochemicals as well.

So far, HRI Labs has analyzed more than 1,200 urine samples. The testing is being done as part of a research project, which will provide valuable information about the presence of glyphosate in the diet. It will also help answer questions about how lifestyle and location affects people’s exposure to agrochemicals. Here are some of their findings to date:

  • 76 percent of people tested have some level of glyphosate in their system
  • Men typically have higher levels than women
  • People who eat oats on a regular basis have twice as much glyphosate in their system as people who don’t (likely because oats are desiccated with glyphosate before harvest)
  • People who eat organic food on a regular basis have an 80 percent lower level of glyphosate than those who rarely eat organic. This indicates organic products are a safer choice
  • People who eat five or more servings of vegetables per day have glyphosate levels that are 50 percent lower than those who don’t eat fewer vegetables

According to Fagan:

“So far, we haven’t seen any connection with rural versus city dwellers, or with seasonal changes. This indicates that most of the glyphosate is coming into our [bodies] through the food we eat and not through the environment around us. Though, we have seen some interesting things. For instance, in the Midwest, we’re seeing that rain water has quite substantial levels of glyphosate … Rain water, although you might think of that as being a healthy source of water, is a little risky that way.”

Recommended Reading – Glyphosate Found In 93% of Urine Samples

GMOs Linked to Dramatic Rise in Glyphosate Contamination

HRI Labs is also collaborating with a research group at the University of California in San Diego that has access to urine samples from epidemiological studies in which populations were tracked over 15 and 20 years. By comparing urine samples from people going back into the 1970s, up until the present, they’ve been able to show that once GMOs appeared in the marketplace, glyphosate levels rose dramatically.

“[I]t shows there’s a correlation between the use of [glyphosate] in agriculture and the level of exposure of the population,” Fagan says. “Remember, there’s growing evidence that low levels of [chemicals] interact with each other, so that you have a little glyphosate here, and maybe some atrazine from another place, and those together might have a nasty impact …

That’s where we are with things today. We’re working in a focused way to look at other aspects of our food system, and looking not just for the pesticides and the negative things, but we want to look and understand what the connections between the way food is produced … and its nutritional value are.

What we’re seeing is that healthy soil makes healthy food, makes healthy people. We’re going to go into that using these very sophisticated techniques, like high pressure liquid chromatography linked to mass spectrometry, to look at all of the nutrients at once.

With these machines, from a single sample of broccoli we can look at 500 to 1,000 different metabolites, different nutrients, and in one fell swoop get a sense of … how does regeneratively produced broccoli compare with broccoli that’s produced using chemicals, or how does a chicken produced in a confined animal feeding operation compare in nutritional value to a chicken produced in a regenerative pasture-based production system?

We don’t have the answers to that yet, but I’ll bet we’re going to find big differences in the nutrition. The protein value may be the same, and the fats and the carbohydrates, but [in] the micronutrients we’re going to see big differences, and it’s those micronutrients that make the difference in terms of the health of your physiology, the strength of bones, and the balance in your physiology. We hope to be able to bring some really powerful new information to you in this way …”

Food Testing Is Here to Stay

The advent of GMOs drastically altered our food system in several respects, and not a single change has been beneficial. Today, factory farms have become one of the largest sources of toxic pollution that destroys soil, water and air quality, and threatens human health in more ways than one. Nutritional quality of food has declined while contamination with toxic chemicals and drug-resistant pathogens has increased.

Nutritional and chemical testing is an invaluable tool to get an understanding of the full extent of the problem. It is our hope that, with enough evidence, change will eventually be brought about, if not from a government level, then from the ground up, driven by informed consumers demanding purer food.

As mentioned by Fagan, my product development team is now using HRI Labs to evaluate the purity and quality of our own product line as well — an extra double-check, if you will, to ensure our products are maximally pure and safe, and of the highest quality and nutritional value possible. This is being added as another layer of quality control on top of our standard quality protocols.

Again, if you want to test your drinking water or environmental exposure levels for glyphosate, those tests are now available to the public. You can find both of them in my online store. They’re provided as a service to my readers at the same price you’d pay if you were to order it right from HRI Labs.