Health & Fitness

The struggle with weight gain and obesity is a common and costly health issue, leading to an increase in risk for heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and cancer, just to name a few.¹

Obese individuals also have substantially higher medical expenses and indirect costs associated with lost productivity, transportation and premature mortality, and obesity is the reason why 1 in 3 fail to qualify for military service in the U.S.²

According to the 2019 State of Obesity report,³ 18.5% of American children (ages 2 to 19) and 39.6% of adults are now obese, not just overweight. Between the 1988-1994 and 2015-2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, the adult obesity rate rose over 70% and the childhood obesity rate rose by 85%, and there are no signs of this trend slowing or reversing.⁴

While the food industry has become notorious for funding anti-obesity programs that focus on physical activity, research clearly shows that processed foods, sugary beverages and high-carbohydrate diets are a primary concern. Sure, inactivity certainly contributes to the problem, but you cannot exercise your way out of a poor diet.

Processed vegetable oils, which are high in damaged omega-6 fats, are yet another reason why processed food diets are associated with higher rates of heart disease and other diseases.

Soybean oil, which is the most widely consumed fat in the U.S.,⁵ has been shown to play a significant role in obesity and diabetes, actually upregulating genes involved in obesity.⁶ Remarkably, soybean oil was found to be more obesogenic than fructose. It's also been shown to cause neurological changes in the brain.^7,8

Junk Foods Addiction Is Real

Processed junk food destroys your metabolism and promotes obesity through a variety of mechanisms. Among them is the way these kinds of foods affect your appetite control. Several studies have also demonstrated that processed foods are addictive.

As detailed in "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food," your body is designed to naturally regulate how much you eat and the energy you burn. Food manufacturers have figured out how to override these intrinsic regulators, engineering processed foods that are "hyper-rewarding."

According to the food reward hypothesis of obesity, processed foods stimulate such a strong reward response in our brains that it becomes very easy to overeat. One of the guiding principles for the processed food industry is known as "sensory-specific satiety."

In a 2013 New York Times article, investigative reporter Michael Moss described this as "the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm your brain."⁹ The greatest successes, whether beverages or foods, owe their "craveability" to complex formulas that pique your taste buds without overwhelming them, thereby overriding your brain's satiety signals.

Potato chips are among the most addictive junk foods on the market, containing all three "bliss-inducing" ingredients: sugar (from the potato), salt and fat. And while food companies abhor the word "addiction" in reference to their products, scientists have discovered that sugar, in particular, is just that. In fact, sugar has been shown to be more addictive than cocaine.

Research¹⁰ published in 2007 showed 94% of rats allowed to choose between sugar water and cocaine chose sugar. Even cocaine addicted rats quickly switched their preference to sugar once it was offered as an alternative. The rats were also more willing to work for sugar than for cocaine.

The researchers speculate that the sweet receptors (two protein receptors located on your tongue), which evolved in ancestral times when the diet was very low in sugar, have not adapted to modern times' high-sugar consumption.

As a result, the abnormally high stimulation created by sugar-rich diets generates excessive reward signals in your brain, which have the potential to override normal self-control mechanisms and thus lead to addiction and overeating.

Junk Foods Interfere With Appetite Control

Most recently, Australian researchers found a single week of bingeing on fast foods impaired appetite control, making the volunteers more likely to desire more junk food, even if they'd just eaten.¹¹ They also scored lower on memory tests, thus confirming previous findings¹² showing a Western-style diet impairs learning and memory. As reported by Science Alert:¹³

"The findings suggest something is amiss in the hippocampus — a region of the brain that supports memory and helps to regulate appetite. When we are full, the hippocampus is thought to quieten down our memories of delicious food, thereby reducing our appetite. When it's disrupted, this control can be seriously undermined."

For this eight-day experiment, healthy volunteers between the ages of 17 and 35 with a body mass index¹⁴ between 17 and 26 (slightly underweight to mildly overweight) were instructed to eat:

• Two Belgian waffles on four days
• A main meal and a drink or dessert from a popular fast food chain on two days

On days 1 and 8, the volunteers were given a toasted sandwich and milkshake for breakfast at the lab. The control group were given the same breakfast at the start and end of the study, but were instructed to eat normally during the remainder of the week.

On days 1 and 8, participants also completed pre- and post-breakfast "wanting and liking tests," in which they were first presented with six sugary breakfast foods and asked to rate how strong their desire to eat the food right now was. Next, they were instructed to consume the samples and rate how much they liked it, and how much more of it they thought they would be able to eat right then. As reported by the authors:¹⁵

"One week's exposure to a WS-diet [Western-style diet] caused a measurable weakening of appetitive control, as measured by the two key ratings on the wanting and liking test.

Prior to the intervention, participants viewed palatable breakfast foods and judged how much they wanted to eat them, and then how much they liked their actual taste. This test was repeated after participants had eaten to satiety.

Across these pre- and post-meal tests, wanting ratings declined far more than ratings of taste liking. This manifestation of appetitive control — that is the expectation that food is less desirable than it actually tastes — changed in participants following the Western-style dietary intervention."

High-Sugar Diets Lower Nutrient Absorption

If you eat a fast-food burger, you can easily take in close to half your daily caloric requirements. Add in fries and a soda and you may be nearing an entire day's worth of required calories. However, you have not received the vitamins and minerals, the live enzymes and micronutrients, the healthy fats or high-quality protein that your body needs to function, let alone thrive.

This was recently demonstrated in a Swedish study,^16,17 which found that the more added sugar your diet contains, the lower your micronutrient intake (i.e., vitamins and minerals).

To examine this relationship, the researchers examined dietary data collected in two Swedish population based studies (the National Swedish Food Survey and the Malmö Diet and Cancer Study).

Each individual's added sugar intake was estimated by subtracting naturally-occurring fructose from the total sugar content of the diet as a whole. Energy intake for added sugar was then stratified into six groups:

Less than 5% of energy intake from added sugar	5% to 7.5%
7.5% to 10%	10% to 15%
15% to 20%	Greater than 20%

They also calculated the intake of calcium, folate, iron, magnesium, potassium, selenium, vitamin C, vitamin D and zinc, finding an inverse relationship between added sugar intake and intakes of all nine micronutrients. According to the authors:¹⁸

"These findings suggest that in two Swedish populations the higher the intake of added sugar in the diet, the more likely it is that the intake of micronutrients will be compromised …

However, although the trends are significant and consistent with those obtained in other studies on the subject, future studies are needed in order to build the necessary scientific knowledge to establish a threshold of added sugar intake based on micronutrient dilution."

When fast food meals are consumed day in and day out, for months and years on end, weight gain is virtually guaranteed, yet your body may still be starving and malfunctioning for lack of essential nutrients.

Depression Is a Junk Food State of Mind

Aside from promoting obesity, processed food and fast food diets have also been strongly linked to depression, especially in teens. In a 2019 study,¹⁹ researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham looked into the role diet plays in symptoms of depression.

To do that, they analyzed the excretion of sodium and potassium in the urine of 84 urban, low‐income adolescents. Higher levels of sodium in the urine can be an indication of a diet high in sodium, such as processed foods and salty snacks. A low level of potassium, meanwhile, is indicative of a diet lacking in fruits, vegetables and other healthy potassium-rich foods.

As expected, higher sodium and lower potassium excretion rates were associated with more frequent symptoms of depression at follow up 1.5 years later. "This study was the first to demonstrate relationships between objective indicators of unhealthy diet and subsequent changes in depressive symptoms in youth," the authors wrote.²⁰

It's possible that eating foods high in sodium and low in potassium may lead to depression by negatively influencing neurotransmitters and neural function during a time that is particularly vulnerable.

"Given the substantial brain development that occurs during adolescence, individuals in this developmental period may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of diet on the neural mechanisms underlying emotion regulation and depression," the researchers said.

In addition, poor diet could influence depression by disturbing the gut microbiome, which could further influence brain function. Past studies have also confirmed the diet-depression link among children and teens.

For example, a systematic review²¹ of 12 studies involving children and adolescents also found an association between unhealthy diet and poorer mental health. Conversely, those with healthier diets had better mental health. The consumption of junk food has also been linked to a higher risk for psychiatric distress and violent behaviors in children and adolescents.²²

Adults may also suffer mentally from a diet based on unhealthy foods. A 2016 study²³ found women who ate a pro-inflammatory diet (which can include one high in processed foods), were more likely to have recurring depressive symptoms, and a 2018 systematic review and meta-analysis,²⁴ which looked at data from 101,950 participants, also found an association between a pro-inflammatory diet and risk of depression.

The Scourge of Ultraprocessed Food

Unfortunately, Americans not only eat a preponderance of processed food, but 60% of it is ultraprocessed²⁵ — products at the far end of the "significantly altered" spectrum, or what you could typically purchase at a gas station.

Any food that isn't directly from the vine, ground, bush or tree, is considered processed. Depending on the amount of change the food undergoes, processing may be minimal or significant. For instance, frozen fruit is usually minimally processed, while pizza, soda, chips and microwave meals are ultra-processed foods.

The difference in the amount of sugar between foods that are ultraprocessed and minimally processed is dramatic. Research²⁶ has shown 21.1% of calories in ultraprocessed foods come from added sugar, compared to just 2.4% of the calories in processed food and none in unprocessed foods.

In addition to obesity, depression and other chronic health problems, ultra-processed foods will also shorten your life span. French researchers found that for each 10% increase in the amount of ultraprocessed food an individual consumed, the risk of death rose by 14%.²⁷

This link remained even after taking confounding factors such as smoking, obesity and low educational background into account. The primary factors driving the increased death rate was chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer.

In my view, eating a diet consisting of 90% real food and only 10% or less processed foods is an achievable goal for most that could make a significant difference in your weight and overall health.

Ultraprocessed foods should be kept to an absolute minimum and consumed only rarely. As noted in a 2016 study,²⁸ "Decreasing the consumption of ultraprocessed foods could be an effective way of reducing the excessive intake of added sugars in the USA." To get started, consider the following basics. For more detailed guidance, see my nutrition plan:

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Business Insider¹ reports that the beauty industry reached a value of $532 billion in 2019 and is projected to rapidly rise in the coming years. Cosmetics and personal care products are benefiting from social media, targeted pricing and companies that are aiming at sustainable alternatives demanded by consumers.

In other words, it’s big business. Women have been using products to alter or enhance their appearance since at least the times of ancient Egypt.² Despite continued growth in the industry, it’s important to note that just because you can buy it at the store, it doesn’t mean it’s safe to use.

In fact, the Environmental Working Group (EWG)³ says that legislation passed in the 1930s marked the last time federal supervision regulating personal care products was updated,⁴ “before most of the synthetic chemicals in use today were even invented.”

In addition to this well-known lack of oversight, the Food and Drug Administration allows products to be sold without basic safety testing of the ingredients.⁵ To investigate the extent of the problem, the EWG database was used to study how many personal care products and cosmetics may contain Teflon or other forms of the perfluoroalkyl chemicals (PFASs).

The product survey by EWG scientists⁶ revealed there were 13 different types of PFAS chemicals found in nearly 200 products across 28 brands of makeup, shampoo, sunscreen and shaving cream. However, the most common was Teflon, which showed up in 66 products involving 15 brands. It has become more than apparent that self-regulation isn’t working.

Self-Regulated Cosmetics and Personal Care Industry

Sharyl Attkisson of Full Measure⁷ conducted an investigative report in which she interviewed Melanie Benesh of EWG; Wynne Sisk, a hair stylist; Susan Collins, U.S. Senator (R-Maine); and Jay Ansell, vice president of the trade association Science for the Personal Care Products Council.

During the interview Benesh pointed out that consumers use multiple products and likely think they were regulated for safety. However, when the law passed in 1938 it was missing a section which would have given the FDA the authority to impose sanctions. She pointed out that the FDA does not have the jurisdiction to recall products or “to do a systematic look at their ingredients and what their long-term effects are.”

Sisk left her job as a hairstylist when she realized the hair straightening treatments she used on her customers were causing her eyes and throat to burn. The products didn’t have warning labels, which she later learned contained formaldehyde, noted to be a possible carcinogen. She lamented, “How in the world could you turn a blind eye to something that is so important?”

You may be surprised by Ansell’s answer. He told the reporter the industry is not unregulated, just not as regulated as food and drugs. In fact, he believes, “the industry can be proud of what it’s done, but people want to see some of these voluntary initiatives become mandatory.”

One challenge is that not everyone in the industry wants these changes. Despite support on both sides of the aisle in Congress, legislation to protect consumers has not passed. Many have been lobbied against by the industry as it would cost money to test products and find safer alternatives that offer the same or similar results.

Congress Wants the FDA to Have Power, but Industry Does Not

The most recent push to give the FDA teeth in regulating personal care products and cosmetics was in 2015 when Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Collins introduced the Personal Care Products Safety Act.⁸ The bill was intended to strengthen the efforts to regulate ingredients.

It was not successful and was reintroduced on May 11, 2017. Again unsuccessful, Feinstein and Collins tried a third time on March 7, 2019. The bill requires the FDA to annually analyze ingredients in personal care products. Quaternium-15, a known formaldehyde releaser used as a preservative, was among the first five identified in the bill.⁹

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics¹⁰ reports that women are exposed to 168 unique chemical ingredients from just 12 personal care products that are used on a daily basis. Teenagers are especially vulnerable to chemical exposures because their bodies are still developing. Teens use an average of 17 personal care products a day and are exposed to even more in their environment.¹¹ Feinstein commented:¹²

“From shampoo and shaving cream to deodorant and make-up, every American comes into contact with personal care products every day. Families trust that these products are safe, but unfortunately many ingredients have never been independently evaluated.

Our bipartisan legislation, which has the support of numerous companies and consumer advocacy groups, would modernize FDA’s oversight authority and give consumers confidence that everyday personal care products won’t harm their health.”

What’s in Your Lipstick?

The FDA is charged with regulating the cosmetics industry, but the only real power it has is to approve color additives. This covers lipstick. However, it is not the entire product that requires approval, only the color additive.¹³

Lipstick may be an important barometer as it is the least expensive and currently the most popular cosmetic. Byrdie¹⁴ writes that 81% of women use lipstick but only 64% use foundation. In one survey of 300 lipstick-wearing women, 85% said it made them feel more confident. In the U.S., women buy about eight or nine tubes each year.

Lipstick can trace its roots back to ancient civilizations when lip color was popular with Egyptians, Babylonians and Greeks.¹⁵ The dyes and pigments used in modern products are made to appeal to consumers who follow current trends. It only makes sense that the lipstick applied to your lips will end up on your utensils and glasses, while some of it will be swallowed.

When this happens you’re swallowing chemicals added to improve wearability and durability, including methylparaben and propylparaben. These are frequently added as preservatives in the U.S.,¹⁶ but they’re banned in the European Union because they’re toxic.¹⁷

In fact, they’re so toxic that the Illinois Poison Center maintains information for parents whose children have swallowed more than a mouthful of lipstick.¹⁸ Janet Nudelman from the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics spoke to The Guardian, saying:¹⁹

“In the US it’s really a buyer beware situation. Cosmetics companies can use any raw material that they like and there’s no way to know if they are safe before they reach the shelves. The contrast with the EU is stark and troubling.”

Summer Sunscreen Adds Recent Fuel to the Fire

It bears repeating that sunscreen is widely overused. There are times when it's wise to apply the product, but those are few and far between. For the most part you need to rely on sensible sun exposure and get out of the sun or cover with clothing the moment your skin starts to get light pink.

Recommendations for sunscreen use by the American Academy of Dermatology²⁰ differ widely as they state you should use sunscreen "Every day if you will be outside" and "When outdoors, reapply sunscreen approximately every two hours, or after swimming or sweating, according to the directions on the bottle."

The important strategy is to get enough sun on exposed skin to promote vitamin D production in your body without getting burned. A liberal application of sunscreen has more than one negative effect on your health.

As a matter of fact, many products contain more than a dozen active ingredients that may be damaging. In a proposed rule, the FDA²¹ states that of the 16 active ingredients used, two are generally recognized as safe and effective (GRASE), two have known safety hazards and, "There are 12 ingredients for which there are insufficient safety data to make a positive GRASE determination at this time."

In other words, 87.5% of the ingredients used in sunscreen are either known to be hazardous or there isn't enough information for the FDA to determine if they are safe. A current class action lawsuit filed against Coppertone alleges that calling their products “mineral based” is misleading.²²

The argument is that “legitimate mineral-based sunscreens will contain up to 24 percent titanium dioxide or zinc oxide with no chemical ingredients.” However, those purchased by the plaintiff reportedly contained only 9.7% minerals and 12% active chemical ingredients. According to Top Class Actions:²³

“The plaintiffs claim that the “Mineral-Based” products in question include: Coppertone Water Babies Mineral-Based Sunscreen Stick, Coppertone Water Babies Mineral-Based Sunscreen Lotion (in various sizes); Coppertone Kids Mineral-Based Sunscreen Lotion; and Coppertone Sport Face Mineral-Based Sunscreen Lotion.”

The plaintiff argues that the chemical ingredients have known harmful health effects and that the chemicals are absorbed through the skin. The lawsuit lists allergic reactions, skin irritation and endocrine disruption as some of the known problems associated with the active chemicals.

Protect Yourself From Toxins in Personal Care Products

One way to help promote change in the cosmetic industry is to participate in tracking adverse events from any chemical or product you use. The FDA²⁴ maintains a database of information gathered from consumers.

You can choose to report the incident by filling out an online form, sending a fax, mailing in a complaint or calling 1-800-FDA-1088.

Remember that your skin is an excellent drug delivery system, as well-advertised nicotine patches demonstrate. This means that what you put on your skin is as important as what you put in your mouth.

Instead of buying the newest celebrity-endorsed personal care product or cosmetic, consider making your own bath and handwashing products without preservatives. Coconut oil is a healthy skin moisturizer with natural antibacterial properties that can double as a makeup remover.

Seek out safe products free of potentially dangerous chemicals using the EWG's Skin Deep database.²⁵ Be aware that while a product may be labeled "all natural" it can still contain harmful chemicals, so it is wise to check the ingredients and the rating in the EWG database.

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Protect yourself from contracting the COVID-19 virus with knowledge. Here's the four ways that coronavirus is spread from person to person, but also the ways which it is not. 

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A new child can spark feelings of jealousy in a person who already fears being abandoned by his or her partner, research suggests. A new study found that partners who showed signs of relationship anxiety before the birth of their first child were more likely to be jealous of the child after it was born.

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A new study finds disclaimers on some false news stories make people more readily believe other false stories.

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In an exclusive interview on body+soul's podcast Healthy-ish, the Aussie fitness icon gets real about the fourth trimester after giving birth to her first child Arna.

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From faux bacon to plant-powered chicken, the vegan meat options are endless. But just how healthy are they? Here are protein-packed healthier alternatives to stock up on.

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It sounds counterintuitive for a dating app designed to bring people together, but Tinder has issued a serious health warning about coronavirus to American users - warning them of the dangers of getting too close. 

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New research on the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a multi-center study (n=101) of the relationship between chest CT findings and the clinical conditions of COVID-19 pneumonia -- which determined that most patients with the disease have ground-glass opacities (GGO) (86.1%) or mixed GGO and consolidation (64.4%) and vascular enlargement in the lesion (71.3%). CT involvement score can help evaluate the severity and extent of COVID-19 pneumonia.

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A new technique for mapping the forces that clusters of cells exert on their surroundings could be useful for studying everything from tissue development to cancer metastasis.

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Researchers have developed a promising molecular tool that targets and inhibits one of cell immortality's underlying gears: the enzyme telomerase.

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Australia, meet your newest Bachelor - and there's a good chance you've seen the hunky 30-year-old on TV before.

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Ever wish your computer could think like you do or perhaps even understand you? That future may not be now, but it's one step closer, thanks to scientists and engineers and their recent discovery of a materials-based mimic for the neural signals responsible for transmitting information within the human brain.

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New research shows that animals on a prebiotic diet sleep better and are buffered from the physiological impacts of stress. The undigestible dietary compounds, found in fibrous foods and some dairy products, serve as nourishment for beneficial bacteria and influence metabolites that, in turn, impact the brain.

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New research shows that animals on a prebiotic diet sleep better and are buffered from the physiological impacts of stress. The undigestible dietary compounds, found in fibrous foods and some dairy products, serve as nourishment for beneficial bacteria and influence metabolites that, in turn, impact the brain.

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A study reveals a neural circuit that appears to underlie sensory hypersensitivity in a mouse model of autism, offering a possible strategy for developing new treatments.

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Chronic pain is an enigma for both pain doctors and their patients: difficult to understand (as everyone’s pain is different), challenging to treat effectively, and frustrating to live with. Desperate patients sometimes turn to drastic and irreversible surgical procedures, like amputating nerves to relieve pain, and unfortunately even those procedures may fail to provide the hoped-for results. Fortunately there have been great strides in research related to pain perception and our nervous system’s reaction to various pain treatments, and we’ve been able to develop novel devices that provide many people with much-needed relief and improve their quality of life.

What is neuromodulation?

The International Neuromodulation Society defines therapeutic neuromodulation as “the alteration of nerve activity through targeted delivery of a stimulus, such as electrical stimulation or chemical agents, to specific neurological sites in the body.” Dr. Norman Shealy, a neurosurgeon, implanted the first device for the relief of intractable pain in 1967, and his work ushered in a new era for chronic pain management.

Similar to the way a cardiac pacemaker corrects abnormal heartbeats, neuromodulation therapies help to re-establish normal function of the nervous system. One of the most common examples of neuromodulation is the use of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) for chronic pain management. SCS consists of a very thin lead (or wire) that is placed in the space just outside the spinal cord (known as the epidural space). The lead is attached to a small generator device that is implanted under the skin and subcutaneous layer in the back or buttock. The devices will deliver frequent, low-voltage electrical impulses to the spine, with subsequent modulation of the pain signals in transit to the brain. Those impulses often feel like a gentle tingling or buzzing (which is called paresthesia) on the body. There has been significant advancement in the hardware and the technology since the first model was placed, and patients report better pain control with less feeling of vibrations.

Another form of neuromodulation is the intrathecal pump, which is a device designed to deliver a desired medication directly into the spinal fluid surrounding the spinal cord. This technique allows a drug to be administered in much smaller doses, because it does not have to be metabolized through other body systems before reaching the target area. Smaller doses — in the range of 1/300 of an oral dose — can mean fewer side effects, increased patient comfort, and improved quality of life. The device consists of a small plastic tube called a catheter, which is placed in the intrathecal space of the spine and is connected to the pump; a space inside the pump called the reservoir holds the medication. This could be a pain medication, or a muscle relaxant to help relieve muscle spasticity in certain neurological disorders like cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis.

Other examples of neuromodulation that aren’t specifically related to pain include the use of deep brain stimulation (DBS) treatment for Parkinson’s disease; sacral nerve stimulation for pelvic disorders and incontinence; vagal nerve stimulation for migraines; and spinal cord stimulation for ischemic disorders involving the heart and peripheral vascular disease. In addition, neuromodulation devices can stimulate a response where there was previously none, as in the case of a cochlear implant restoring hearing in a deaf patient.

Neuromodulation technologies are cost-effective options for managing chronic pain

Given the initial costs of devices and their relative novelty, neuromodulation treatments have typically been offered to patients only after they have tried conventional treatment options such as medications, physical and occupational therapy, or surgery. Clinical decision-making and insurance coverage is changing, and neuromodulation is now being considered much earlier in treatment planning. Several studies have shown that early treatment with these modalities is cost-effective, as they can reduce office and emergency room visits, hospitalizations, ineffective or risky surgical procedures, and misuse of opioid medications. As to when should you consider these options, your physician can provide guidance based on your particular situation and experience with other pain treatments.

Neuromodulation treatment is not without risks

General complications may include bleeding, infection, blood clots, and reactions to medication (in the case of an intrathecal pump). And since everyone’s nervous system is unique, the response to these treatments may vary from one patient to another. For these reasons a trial is performed before a device is permanently implanted.

The bottom line

People who have tried multiple treatments, including surgeries that did not provide significant pain relief, may wish to try neuromodulation technologies. Neuromodulation modalities are promising therapies when existing treatment becomes problematic for long-term use due to the development of tolerance, addiction, and adverse side effects. These are minimally invasive procedures that have tremendous potential to improve patients’ lives.

The post Pain and neuromodulation: What’s all the “buzz” about? appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

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Chemical pesticides have become a mainstay of modern agriculture, despite red flags that they’re slowly destroying ecosystems. (Technically, pesticides are designed to kill insects, while herbicides are used to kill weeds or substances like bacteria or fungi, but when discussing them, the U.S. EPA lumps them all together as “pesticides.”¹)

Part of what makes assessing the health and environmental risks of pesticides so difficult is that many of the risks remain unknown, and those that are known can be difficult to quantify, no matter what they’re called.

So, researchers like Robert Brucker, who heads up a lab in the Microbial Sciences Initiative at the Rowland Institute of Harvard, are invaluable. Brucker and colleagues are looking into the hidden risks of pesticides — silent, insidious changes that are occurring before our eyes yet often under the radar, such that standardized risk assessments do not consider them, but should.

In research published in Cell Host & Microbe, the researchers looked into the effects of atrazine, an herbicide that’s banned in the European Union but widely used in the U.S., on Nasonia vitripennis, a wasp. According to the study, “atrazine is the second-most-sold pesticide globally.”²

The study revealed that exposure to low doses of atrazine leads to changes in the gut microbiota of the wasps, increasing their resistance to pesticides. What’s more, the changes were transferred to subsequent generations. “The big surprise,” Brucker said in a news release, “was that one exposure, even at a nontoxic level, was enough to cause a heritable change in the microbial community.”³

Atrazine Changes Gut Microbes, Increases Pesticide Resistance

Pesticides are an example of one of the greatest exposure risks to xenobiotics — chemical compounds found in a living organism that are not normally produced or consumed by the organism in question. When consumed, xenobiotics are either absorbed directly by the gut or metabolized by gut microbiota.

It’s often said that atrazine is a “safe” pesticide because animals lack the ability to metabolize it, but it’s known that bacteria in soil and water can metabolize the chemical.⁴

“We chose atrazine because it’s widely used for corn crops, and is considered to be safe to most animals: Up to 3 [parts per billion, or ppb] is allowable in drinking water,” Brucker stated. “One of the first things we did was evaluate whether it was even toxic to our wasps — we had no reason to think it would be [at lower doses].”⁵

For the study, researchers exposed wasps to atrazine at concentrations of 300 ppb, an amount meant to simulate the exposure level that would occur among pollinators visiting a field that was recently sprayed. Changes in gut microbiota occurred, which increased the insects’ tolerance to pesticides, including not only atrazine but also glyphosate — a chemical to which the wasps had not been exposed.

The microbial changes in the wasps’ guts persisted across successive generations, meaning that the wasps’ offspring were affected even though they weren’t exposed to atrazine.

“Pesticide resistance is something that agriculture scientists are continually looking to avoid, so this finding is important,” Brucker continued. “When the wasps were only exposed to only 30 ppb of atrazine, the effect over 36 generations was increased resistance.”⁶

Wild Honeybees Also Affected by Atrazine

The researchers then screened wild honeybees from Brucker’s Ohio family farm, which live in an area with cornfields that had been sprayed with atrazine. Bacterial genes capable of degrading atrazine and, probably, other xenobiotics were found — genes that were “nearly identical” to genes found in the laboratory wasps.⁷ Writing in Cell Host & Microbe, the researchers concluded:⁸

“The rare gut bacteria Serratia marcescens and Pseudomonas protegens contributed to atrazine metabolism. Both of these bacteria contain genes that are linked to atrazine degradation and were sufficient to confer resistance in experimental wasp populations.

Thus, pesticide exposure causes functional, inherited changes in the microbiome that should be considered when assessing xenobiotic exposure and as potential countermeasures to toxicity.”

Notably, despite increasing attention to the extensive role the gut microbiome plays in health, host-microbiome interaction is not part of standard biorisk assessments for pesticides, though Brucker believes it should be. He stated in a Harvard news release:

“Everyone feels strongly about protecting our pollinator species, so we may need to be mindful of our uses of xenobiotics in crop management.

We need to understand multigenerational exposure better, and make host–microbiome interaction part of biorisk assessment in the future, especially in light of increasing xenobiotic exposure to humans, plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria across the globe.”⁹

Moving toward regenerative agriculture is the answer to reducing the toxic reliance on pesticides that is harming the environment and pollinators along with it. However, in the meantime Brucker and colleagues are even looking to develop probiotics for wasps that could help to stem some of the risks caused by multiple exposures to pesticides.

Atrazine Linked to Reproductive Problems

If you’re wondering why atrazine has been banned in the European Union, it’s because it’s already been linked to a wealth of health and environmental problems, including that it may be chemically castrating male frogs, essentially turning them into female frogs — a finding made by Tyrone Hayes, Ph.D., an integrative biologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

Hayes’ research hypothesized that atrazine turned on an enzyme (aromatase) that caused testosterone to be converted into estrogen. If you’re a male, this means that you won’t make sperm, but you will make estrogen, even though you shouldn’t.

According to Hayes and colleagues in research published in Nature in 2002,¹⁰ exposure to water-borne atrazine contamination led to “gonadal abnormalities such as retarded development and hermaphroditism” in 10% to 92% of male wild leopard frogs. Hayes published another study in 2010 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), which similarly found:¹¹

“Atrazine-exposed males suffered from depressed testosterone, decreased breeding gland size, demasculinized/feminized laryngeal development, suppressed mating behavior, reduced spermatogenesis, and decreased fertility.”

Atrazine is known to be a widespread water contaminant as well, including in drinking water. In the U.S., atrazine has been detected in 78% of drinking water,¹² and as noted by the authors of the featured study, “Previous studies have shown atrazine has multiple impacts on a host animal, including changes in stress response gene expression, protein production, male mating ability, egg production, mating choice, mitochondrial dysfunction, insulin resistance, and overall survival.”

Further, by inducing aromatase,¹³ which causes overproduction of estrogen, atrazine is also suspected of contributing to breast cancer¹⁴ and is a potent endocrine disrupter.

More Evidence Glyphosate Causes Cancers

Atrazine is only one pesticide that’s causing potentially devastating effects. In March 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is the research arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), determined glyphosate to be a "probable carcinogen" (Class 2A).

Since then, Monsanto (which was acquired by Bayer in June 2018), has been inundated by lawsuits from people claiming their cancer was caused by Roundup, which contains glyphosate as its active ingredient.

In the U.S., approximately 42,700 U.S. lawsuits from individuals alleging that glyphosate caused them to develop cancer have already been filed.¹⁵ Bayer is in settlement talks to resolve the litigation but continues to deny that the chemical causes cancer.

Ken Feinber, a court-appointed mediator, stated in January 2020 that Roundup cancer claimants could surpass 75,000.¹⁶ In the first three cases to go to trial, Bayer has been ordered to pay billions of dollars to the plaintiffs, although the awards were later slashed to the tens of millions range.

Research published in Frontiers in Genetics also supports glyphosate’s cancer link, finding that exposure in low concentrations (in parts per trillion) may induce cancer in cells when combined with microRNA-182-5p (miR182-5p).¹⁷

MicroRNA-182-5p is a gene regulatory molecule found in everyone, and overexpression of the molecule has been linked to cancer. Michael Antoniou of King's College London, who peer reviewed the study, stated, "These observations highlight for the first time a possible biomarker of glyphosate activity at the level of gene expression that could be linked with breast cancer formation.”¹⁸

Glyphosate Review Finds ’37 Significant Tumor Findings’

Likewise, a February 2020 study published in Environmental Health conducted a comprehensive analysis on animal carcinogenicity data for glyphosate, revealing 37 significant tumor findings. The researchers wrote:¹⁹

“The strongest evidence shows that glyphosate causes hemangiosarcomas, kidney tumors and malignant lymphomas in male CD-1 mice [a type of mice often used in cancer research], hemangiomas and malignant lymphomas in female CD-1 mice, hemangiomas in female Swiss albino mice, kidney adenomas, liver adenomas, skin keratoacanthomas and skin basal cell tumors in male Sprague-Dawley rats, adrenal cortical carcinomas in female Sprague-Dawley rats and hepatocellular adenomas and skin keratocanthomas in male Wistar rats.”

Further, according to research by Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, glyphosate inhibits cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes that catalyze the oxidation of organic substances.²⁰ One of the functions of CYP enzymes is to detoxify xenobiotics.

By limiting the ability of these enzymes to detoxify foreign chemical compounds, glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of those chemicals and environmental toxins you may be exposed to. If you’re interested, 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.

They’re also in the process of doing hair testing for glyphosate, which is a better test for long-term exposure. If it turns out that you have measurable levels of glyphosate in your body, Seneff shared some tips for detoxing glyphosate here.

Atrazine Could Be Dropped Without Harming Economy

It’s often assumed that the reason harmful chemicals like atrazine are tolerated is because they contribute to significant gains for crop yields and the economy.

In the case of atrazine, however, cost-benefit studies suggest atrazine may boost corn yields by as much as 6%, while others have found a 3% to 4% increase and others have found only a 1% increase in yields. Yet, when Italy and Germany banned atrazine in 1991, no decrease in corn yields or harvested area occurred.

And, as noted by the late Frank Ackerman, an economist who formerly worked at Tufts University, “Even if atrazine leads to 6% more corn production, it is not certain that this would justify its continued use; a 1%, or perhaps zero, change does not warrant large-scale exposure of humans and the environment to this potentially hazardous chemical.”²¹

Unfortunately, the U.S. continues to lag behind other nations in banning harmful pesticides like atrazine and glyphosate, at the expense of human health and the environment. According to Nathan Donley, of the Environmental Health Program at the Center for Biological Diversity:²²

“Many pesticides still widely used in the USA, at the level of tens to hundreds of millions of pounds annually, have been banned or are being phased out in the EU, China and Brazil. Of the pesticides banned in at least two of these nations, many have been implicated in acute pesticide poisonings in the USA and some are further restricted by individual states.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) has all but abandoned its use of non-voluntary cancellations in recent years, making pesticide cancellation in the USA largely an exercise that requires consent by the regulated industry.”

You can help protect the welfare of humans, animals, insects and the environment alike every time you shop organic, biodynamic and grass fed, as you are “voting” for less pesticides and herbicides with every organic and pastured food and consumer product you buy.

In addition, take steps to make your own backyard healthier for everyone by eliminating the use of pesticides and other chemicals and planting a diverse variety of native flowers and other plants.

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In assessing the validity of medical trials, an inactive control, or placebo, is considered essential in producing high-quality evidence. Randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled studies are, in fact, considered to be the "gold standard," as good as it gets in terms of epidemiologic studies.¹ The assumption here is that the placebo is inert, i.e., is a substance that has no effect on your body.

The reason this is an assumption is that, typically, the contents of the placebo in a study are not disclosed — not to the subjects of the study nor in the subsequent peer-reviewed journal publication.

This leaves much room for "interpretation" when it comes to choosing placebos for studies and, as noted by investigative journalist Maryanne Demasi, Ph.D., who works as a researcher for the Nordic Cochrane Centre, which prides itself on producing "high-quality independent research and systematic reviews that are free from commercial sponsorship,"² "sometimes a placebo is not a placebo."³

Placebo Ingredients Often Remain Undisclosed

When the contents of a placebo are not disclosed as a part of the study design, the study lacks transparency and its results may be skewed or misleading. Demasi mentions editor-in-chief emeritus of Clinical Therapeutics, Dr. Robert Shader, who, in 2017, raised concerns about a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.⁴

Study participants with multiple sclerosis (MS) were randomly assigned to receive intravenous ocrelizumab or placebo every 24 weeks for at least 120 weeks. Ocrelizumab is a monoclonal antibody, an immunosuppressive drug used to treat MS, that was granted a breakthrough therapy (BT) designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2016.⁵

Drugs with a BT designation receive an expedited development and review process. The study found ocrelizumab was associated with lower rates of disease progression than placebo, but as Shader noted:⁶

"There is no mention in the text of how the PBO [placebo] infusion was matched. Was it saline? Was it the same vehicle in which the monoclonal antibody was dissolved? Supplementary appendix content is cited, but here again, there is no further description of the PBO matching process."

Placebos May Contain Ingredients of Concern

Excipients, which are substances like coloring agents, preservatives and fillers that aid in drug delivery, are examples of substances in placebos that could have an unintentional active effect, although they're intended to be, by definition, inactive. Shader wrote:⁷

"Why do I think more information is needed about PBO preparation and packaging? The first point has to do with having the details needed for replication.

The second point is that PBOs may contain excipients that could be troublesome for certain patients or subjects. Examples are tartrazine (yellow dye No. 5), a known allergen, and lactose, a known cause of gastrointestinal symptomatology. Propylene glycol could also be a worry."

In another study cited by Shader, researchers conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of amitriptyline, topiramate and placebo in children and adolescents with migraine headaches. Again, the details of the placebo are not described. Shader noted:⁸

"Here again, the word placebo is used, but the PBO per se is not described. Did it match the active comparators in color and size? Since two different active agents were used, were two different PBOs used?

Was double-dummy packaging employed? According to the methods paper, the dosages of the two active agents were titrated based on the weight of the child or adolescent. There is no discussion of how the PBO was administered."

Vaccine Adjuvant Used as Placebo

One glaring example of a potentially harmful placebo took place in two trials in Merck's clinical development program for the quadrivalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine (Gardasil). In a comment to the BMJ editor, researchers wrote:⁹

"Both trial publications state that they are reports of 'placebo-controlled' trials. However participants in the control arm of these trials did not receive an inert substance, such as saline injection.

Instead, they received an injection containing amorphous aluminium hydroxyphosphate (AAHS), a proprietary adjuvant system that is used in Gardasil to boost immune response. The use of a comparator that was neither an inert substance nor an efficacious vaccine against another disease demands explanation.

The clinical rationale for such a decision is unclear, as the trial arms do not mimic the real life choice of deciding whether or not to receive HPV vaccine, and it is incompatible with established ethical principles regarding the use of placebo in vaccine trials …

Furthermore, because AAHS is not inert, the choice of AAHS-containing control complicates the interpretation of efficacy and safety results in trials."

Indeed, trying to measure safety of a vaccine against the safety profile of a vaccine adjuvant will yield skewed results, as adjuvants may cause problems on their own. When I interviewed Dr. Thomas Cowan, a practicing physician and founding board member of the Weston A. Price Foundation, he explained:

"Adjuvant means 'helper.' These are added to [vaccines to] provoke a broad-spectrum antibody humoral immune response. Now, when you look at the definition of autoimmune diseases … they are characterized by an excessive antibody reaction.

That's how we diagnose them. If you have antibodies to antinuclear antibodies, that means you have lupus. If you have antibodies to rheumatoid factor, that means you have rheumatoid arthritis. If you have antibodies to your thyroid [hormone], that means you have Hashimoto's."

The problem with vaccine adjuvants is that they cannot selectively trigger the activation of antibodies against a specific virus.

"So, you have people walking around with nonspecific activation of their humoral immune system," Cowan says. "Yehuda Shoenfeld, editor-in-chief of Autoimmunity Reviews and The Journal of Autoimmunity, who has written hundreds of papers and books on how autoimmune diseases develop, basically says there's a syndrome called ASIA, which stands for 'Autoimmune Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants,' which is apparently going to be renamed 'Shoenfeld's Syndrome.'"

In short, an adjuvant cannot act as an effective placebo because it causes a response in the body — the opposite of what a placebo is intended for.

Controversial JUPITER Trial Placebo Still Unknown

The controversial JUPITER study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2008,¹⁰ boasted that statin drugs could lower the risk of heart attack by 54%, the risk of stroke by 48%, the risk of needing angioplasty or bypass surgery by 46%, and the risk of death from all causes by 20%.

The funding for this study came from AstraZeneca, the maker of statin drug Crestor — and industry-funded claims of health benefits for highly profit-producing drugs need to be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. There were a number of reasons why the JUPITER study has received criticism, including the use of a statistical tool called relative risk reduction (RRR) to amplify statins' trivial beneficial effects.¹¹

The study was also stopped early for unexplained reasons, which can lead to exaggerated benefits and downplayed risks while allowing the findings to be published earlier.¹² Further, to this day, the ingredients of the placebo used in the trial remain unknown, and although Demasi has attempted to uncover them, so far she's been unsuccessful. She wrote:¹³

"I have made multiple appeals to a European drug regulator (Medicines Evaluation Board) to obtain information (Certificate of Analysis) regarding the ingredients of a placebo used in a controversial statin study (JUPITER trial), but so far, they have fallen on deaf ears.

So, too, have my requests to the trial's lead investigator, Dr. Paul Ridker. Medical journals will need to take responsibility and insist that published papers report on the methodological details of 'inactive' placebos."

The Junk Found in Vaccines

It's not only placebos that may contain active or dangerous components. Vaccines, too, may contain major contaminants and may not even contain antigens capable of creating immunity, according to a "vaccinegate" that occurred in Italy.¹⁴

In 2018, the Italian National Order of Biologists gave a grant to Corvelva, a group of independent researchers that support vaccine choice, to study seven childhood vaccines. The results of four of the vaccines were released in December 2018, showing that they were loaded with impurities, including:¹⁵

• 1.7 to 3.7 microgram of foreign chicken embryo DNA and human fetal DNA, found in the vaccine Priorix Tetra, which is used for protection against measles, mumps, rubella and varicella
• Bacterial DNA, human DNA, mouse DNA and aluminum, found in the Gardasil 9 vaccine for HPV
• Monkey DNA and tetanus phage, which may cause autoimmune disease, found in the Hexyon vaccine, which is used for protection against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, poliomyelitis and influenza B

Further, one of the vaccines, Infanrix Hexa, which is used for protection against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, hepatitis B and haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), did not contain the right form of antigens to be effective. As reported by Down to Earth:

"'The antigens are not present as soluble proteins as they are supposed to be, but as insoluble macromolecules. Due to the insolubility, they will not be recognized by the immune system of the body.

Hence the efficacy is doubtful. Also, its stay in the body can cause unknown toxicity,' says Loretta Bolgan, a consultant of the Italian parliamentary commission on army personnel and an expert on vaccination damage."

While some concerning compounds in vaccines occur as contaminants, others are intentionally added. According to Cowan in our interview:

"Why do they put all [these toxic additives] like dead fetal cells, glyphosate,1 aluminum, formaldehyde and a whole list as long as your arm of stuff [into the vaccine]? … Because [a saline and virus solution] doesn't create an antibody reaction. There's no antibody reaction to do anything … so you have to put aluminum or another adjuvant in it."

Details of 'Inactive' Placebos Need To Be Disclosed

In order for sound science to prevail, the components of placebos should be disclosed as a routine part of the study process. When humans are involved in clinical trials, failing to disclose placebo components violates informed consent, which is ethically and legally required.

Further, depending on what's actually in the placebo, the results of the trial could be incorrect or misleading, and without full disclosure, the study cannot be replicated, a necessity for the scientific process. Shader has been a pioneer toward this end, announcing the following in July 2017 in Clinical Therapeutics.¹⁶ Hopefully this will soon become the rule rather than the exception:¹⁷

"Effective January 1, 2018 (Issue 1, Volume 40), we will require that a full description of any placebo (PBO) or matched control used in a clinical trial be given in the Methods section. It will no longer be sufficient to simply indicate that a PBO was used.

This means that color; type (capsule or pill or liquid); contents (eg, lactose), including dyes; taste (if there is any); and packaging (eg, double-dummy) must be noted. For solid PBOs, shape must also be described, as well as whether the PBO is active or inactive."

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Promises, promises, promises. The toxic world of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and industrial agriculture is built on false promises. For nearly 30 years we have been listening to the propaganda of the big biotech companies like Monsanto/Bayer, Syngenta, DuPont/Pioneer, BASF and others about how genetic engineering will transform farming and food production.

We’ve heard how it will reduce the environmental impact of farming by lowering pesticide use. We’ve been promised that it will increase the nutritional content of food. We’ve been told how it will boost farmers’ profits by increasing yields, and that those increased yields will help “feed the world.”

As the problem of man-made climate change has moved to the top of the global agenda, new promises have emerged about how GMOs will fight climate change and how genetic engineering will make plants more resilient to drought and flooding. The huckster promises keep on coming, but what has the biotech industry actually delivered over nearly three decades?

Increasing Pesticide Use

First and foremost, GMO crops were sold as a way of reducing on-farm pesticide use. But since GM crops were introduced, there has been a dramatic increase in pesticide use on those crops worldwide.

Most GM crops fall into one of two types. Pesticide “resisters,” or “Roundup Ready” crops, mostly corn and soya, are genetically engineered to withstand the spraying of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, the active ingredient of which is glyphosate. Most recently, pesticide resisters have also been engineered to resist other highly toxic pesticides like dicamba and 2,4-D.

GM crops have turned glyphosate into one of the most widely and recklessly used herbicides in history. According to the USDA,¹ more than 90% of the soybeans harvested on U.S. farms are genetically engineered to withstand herbicides like Roundup.

Pesticide “producers,” or Bt plants, which include corn and soya but also cotton, produce their own insecticides. When an agricultural pest eats the crop, in theory, it will be poisoned and die.

But weeds and insects rapidly evolve² to be immune to these poisons. Most agricultural weeds have become resistant to Roundup, causing farmers to spray more each year. The heavier use of herbicides creates ever more “superweeds” and even higher herbicide use.

The increase was first seen in pesticide resisters. A 2012 study³ out of Washington State University found that planting GM crops quickly resulted in herbicide-resistant “superweeds” and, as a result, increased herbicide use.

By 2016, research from University of Virginia confirmed that glyphosate-resistant weeds have led to a 28% hike in herbicide use on GM soybeans⁴ compared with non-GM. This rise has also been reported in other countries such as Canada,⁵ Brazil⁶ and Argentina⁷.

More recently, insects have begun to become resistant⁸ to the insecticides bred into pesticide products, causing farmers to use even more and more dangerous mixtures of pesticides to try and keep them under control.

Loss of Biodiversity

Right now, more than ever, we need a healthy, biodiverse and functioning ecosystem — one that depends on a rich diversity of plants, animals and insects.

Agricultural land that is biodiverse is more productive and more able to cope with unexpected changes, for instance, in climate or cyclical levels of plant diseases or invasive species. Studies show that healthy soil can absorb and hold more CO2⁹ than damaged soil.

But today’s modern industrial farming involves often-large tracts of land devoted to a single crop, known as monocultures. In monocultures diversity is discouraged by the use of pesticides which keep every living thing, except the valuable crop, off the land.

In the U.S., land converted to soy production has typically been pre-existing agricultural land¹⁰ and so is not linked to deforestation, as it is in South America.

But, increasing demand for soy is destroying American prairies and analysis of satellite data has shown that between 2006 and 2011, farmers in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska had converted 1.3 million acres of grassland into soybean¹¹ and corn production. Research by the USDA's Economic Research Service¹² echoes this finding.

No Benefit to Farmers

These monocultures are bad news for wildlife, reducing habitats for a wide range of wild creatures, from ground-nesting birds to pollinators like bees and butterflies. They also are bad for farmers.

An in-depth investigation by The New York Times¹³ in 2016 revealed that, in addition to increasing pesticide use, genetic modification in the U.S. and Canada has failed to bring the expected increases in crop yields.

This resonates with the findings of a 2016 National Academy of Sciences report that found “there was little evidence”¹⁴ that the introduction of genetically modified crops in the United States had led to yield gains beyond those seen in conventional crops.

Most recently, U.S. farmers have been suffering from a glut of soy,¹⁵ linked to ongoing trade disputes with China, which have resulted in low prices and farm bankruptcies.

Equally important is the fact that GMOs have failed to feed the world. The main by-products of GMOs are fats and sugars. GMOs, when they’re not being turned into biofuels, are being turned into corn, soya and even cottonseed oil and sugars such as high-fructose corn syrup and beet sugar.

In other words, what GMOs have most successfully done is provide cheap, unhealthy ingredients for ultraprocessed “ready” meals, prepackaged foods and fast food restaurants.

A Poisoned Plate

All those monoculture crops and all that spraying, especially with glyphosate, have consequences for the food we eat. GMO crop monocultures lead to “monodiets.”

Today just a handful of crops now dominant diets around the world.¹⁶ This new monodiet has more calories and less nutrition. It’s a dietary disaster that is accelerating the worldwide rise in noncommunicable diseases such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

That global diet is also more poisoned than ever before. Glyphosate (Roundup), is sprayed liberally on GM crops. It is also regularly sprayed on non-GMO crops, such wheat, oats, maize and barley but also soya, rapeseed, sunflower seeds and chick peas, as a desiccant, to dry them out, before harvest.

There is also evidence that glyphosate and its toxic breakdown product AMPA (α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid) accumulates in foods like GM soy.¹⁷ Laboratory tests in both the U.S.¹⁸ and Europe¹⁹ have found it in the popular ice cream brand Ben & Jerry's, likely due to its cookie, cake and other cereal ingredients. It is also a contaminant in honey²⁰ and in popular oat-based cereals and multiple other foods,²¹ especially those containing soy.

A recent laboratory analysis by Moms Across America found glyphosate residues in the new recipe Impossible Burger. The levels of glyphosate and AMPA²² were low (11ppb) but evidence from animal feed studies indicates that just 0.1 ppb of glyphosate can destroy gut bacteria.²³

Hardly surprising, then, that tests show 93% of Americans tested were positive for glyphosate.²⁴ Worryingly high levels have been found in the breastmilk and urine²⁵ of American mothers, as well as in their drinking water.

Passed on to babies through breastmilk or the water used to make formula, this could impact infant health since glyphosate is a suspected hormone disrupter.

Other studies of animals fed GM foods and/or glyphosate show worrying trends including damage to vital organs²⁶ like the liver and kidneys, damage to gut tissues and gut flora, immune system disruption, reproductive abnormalities and even tumors.

In March 2015, when glyphosate was classified by the World Health Organization as “probably carcinogenic to humans,”²⁷ not many could have been surprised.

Judgment Day

Agrichemical companies continue to claim that glyphosate is safe. But juries across the U.S. say otherwise. Currently more than 40,000 people in the U.S. have filed lawsuits²⁸ alleging exposure to Roundup is the cause of their cancer and in particular, lymphomas. Once a rare cancer, the most common type of lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, is now the seventh most common cancer in U.S. men and women.^29,30

The first three cases to go to trial resulted in a combined $2.424 billion in jury verdicts³¹ (though this was subsequently reduced by judges). The science supports these verdicts.

A recent study showed convincing evidence³² of a link between glyphosate-based herbicides and endocrine disruption and genetic alterations commonly associated with the development of lymphomas.

One shocking fallout from the first glyphosate case to go to trial, that of Dewayne Johnson,³³ was the unsealing of several previously classified documents.³⁴ The documents detailed Monsanto’s efforts to collude with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to cover up glyphosate’s cancer risks.

Out of 14 glyphosate studies reviewed by the EPA, which looked specifically at cancer in animals, eight found elevated cancer rates in at least one organ or tissue. Yet the EPA chose to dismiss these findings, and conclude that glyphosate is “unlikely to cause cancer.”

Most recently another Monsanto legacy pesticide, dicamba, has hit the headlines. In 2017-18, “dicamba drift” was responsible for damage to an estimated 5 million acres of non-GM soybeans³⁵ in 24 states, and numerous specialty crops and wild plants.

In February 2020, in the first U.S. dicamba trial, a Missouri jury awarded $265 million in damages³⁶ to peach producers Bader Farms when drift from a nearby GM soybean field killed their trees. All these trials point to a health and environmental emergency and, yet, action at the federal level to curb the use of these toxic chemicals is sorely lacking.

Taking matters into their own hands, some states and local communities are beginning to ban or restrict the use of chemicals like glyphosate. In 2018, both Portland³⁷ and the city of Austin³⁸ banned it. In 2019 Miami³⁹ and Los Angeles County⁴⁰ approved their own bans on city property, while Seattle⁴¹ agreed to restrict its use.

Beyond U.S. borders, more than two dozen countries⁴² including Canada, Argentina, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the U.K. have put bans and/or restrictions in place.

Consumer Awareness Rising

Ever since the first genetically modified (GMO) foods and animal drugs, the Flavr Savr tomato⁴³ and recombinant Bovine Growth Hormpne (rBGH), came onto the U.S. market in 1994, the biotech industry has been waging a public relations war to get the public to accept genetically engineered food.

But studies continue to show that the public doesn’t buy it, and doesn’t want to eat it. Most are concerned about health,⁴⁴ and rightly so. Others are worried about the damage these crops cause to the environment. These are legitimate concerns, as are those about corporate control of our food.

In fact, in the past few years some big and consequential mergers have taken place in the agri-biotech sector. With these mergers the “Big Six” (Monsanto, Bayer, BASF, Syngenta, Dow and DuPont) became the Big Four⁴⁵ (Bayer-Monsanto, DowDuPont/Corteva, ChemChina-Syngenta, BASF) further concentrating the majority of the power and profits of the seed and GM technology market into even fewer hands.

Media response to the proposed mergers has turned up a few surprises. For instance, the normally ultraconservative and financially focused Bloomberg online news channel focused more on the dubious histories of Bayer and Monsanto,⁴⁶ than on any benefits of the deal.

A more sober article in the Wall St Journal⁴⁷ suggested this might be a good time to reconsider the path we are on, agriculturally speaking. In the face of superweeds, higher seed prices and dropping yields, it argued, the GMO crop “boom” could well be over.

But the boom isn’t over yet and independent testing which reveals how much glyphosate is in our bodies and in our foods has become widespread. Likewise, the Non-GMO Verified⁴⁸ label is now as important as the organic label for consumers wanting to avoid GMOs in their foods. It’s a testimony to the vehemence of public rejection, and the shameful inaction of government, that the importance of these independent backstops has grown.

The Lie That Won’t Die

In spite of all this, the agricultural biotech industry continues to advance with a new suite of genetic engineering technologies known as gene editing, which includes techniques such as CRISPR as well as synthetic biology and gene drives.

What makes these GMO 2.0⁴⁹ technologies different is they can create genetically engineered organisms more cheaply and more quickly than ever before.

Fronting up to critics and the farmers who are abandoning the GMO lie,⁵⁰ proponents of synthetic biology claim we no longer need farmers to produce food.⁵¹ By creating novel food products, including meat substitutes, from genetically engineered microbes in big vats in anonymous warehouses, we can improve the efficiency and sustainability of food production.

For anyone who believes that food should come from a living and connected ecosystem this is the grimmest of grim promises — a world without farmers and without farm animals, where the land is used for … what, exactly?

This grim vision of food production has been given the nickname, the “dark food chain,”⁵² because it doesn’t need sunlight. Further alarm bells are ringing as the biotech industry moves into other areas of the natural world.

A recent and alarming report⁵³ from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) suggests that gene drives and synthetic biology could be used to revive declining or even extinct species,⁵⁴ eradicate invasive species, improve soil⁵⁵ by re-engineering soil microbes and therefore improve plant health and biodiversity.

It could engineer trees to absorb more carbon⁵⁶ or to be resistant to diseases, such as the invasive fungus that plagues the American chestnut tree,⁵⁷ and re-engineer insects⁵⁸ for pest management.

Farming is part of the much larger, connected web of nature. What happens “out there” directly and indirectly affects what happens on the farm, which is why we need to challenge this troubling direction of travel for GMOs.

Regulatory Apathy

Strong regulation is there to protect us all — or it should be. But new methods and proposed uses for GMOs have brought greater complexity to the regulatory sphere.

In some cases, as with the new gene-edited Calyno soybean oil,⁵⁹ which can be sold without labeling, regulators have given in. In others, such as with proposed gene-edited farm animals, regulators really don’t know what to do.⁶⁰ USDA’s vague and confusing ‘bioengineered’ labeling scheme⁶¹ is a yet another case in point.

Biotech companies argue there is no point in regulating GMO 2.0 anyway since its products are so close to “natural” they no longer need to be tested or labeled as GMO.⁶²

This new “naturalness,” they claim, makes it impossible to tell gene-edited products from conventionally produced ones anyway. This is absolutely not true.⁶³ When genetic engineers create new GMOs, they must also create the processes to identify them — if only to monitor and verify their work.

Anyone can use these processes. That’s just what happened in a U.S. Food and Drug Administration study,⁶⁴ originally published in 2016 and republished in February 2020, which found numerous off-target effects in gene-edited “hornless” cattle, including a strand of bacterial DNA which could pass on antibiotic resistance.

It concluded “that both scientists and regulators need to be alert to the potential for such unintended alterations to take place.” A frank accompanying editorial⁶⁵ explained further why regulation was important.

Following on from this, Belinda Martineau, Ph.D., developer of the Flavr Savr tomato, noted⁶⁶ that the GMO cow developers had the tools to find these mistakes for themselves, but incompetently failed to use them.

“Such big mistakes made during the development of these ‘poster children’ GMOs,” she wrote, “make one wonder how carefully other, more run-of-the-mill GMOs have been developed over the last 25 years as well.”

Marteau went on to say that the data justify, in her mind, “FDA’s intention to carry out mandatory premarket review of all gene-edited livestock and thereby regulate these GE products based on the fact that they were created using genetic engineering,” adding “I also think FDA should require premarket review of all GE crops as well.”

Regenerative Agriculture — Action, Not Promises

If, to coin a phrase, “a promise is a debt unpaid” then the biotech companies are racking up some serious ethical, moral and environmental IOUs to society.

Out of their failure, however, has emerged the regenerative organic agriculture movement, a response to the growing awareness of the connection between agriculture and health, environmental destruction and climate change. Regenerative agriculture⁶⁷ refers to farming and grazing practices such as:

• Reduction/elimination of tillage and use of synthetic chemicals
• The use of cover crops, crop rotations, compost and animal manures
• Integrating animals with perennial and annual plants to create a biologically diverse ecosystem on the farm
• Grazing and pasturing animals on grass and, more specifically, using a planned multi-paddock rotation system
• Raising animals in conditions that mimic their natural habitat

It’s what every diligent farmer should be doing anyway and, formalized into a growing movement, these practices can improve biodiversity on the farm, enhance productivity, and even help tackle climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and improving both carbon drawdown and improved water infiltration and storage in soils. 

The truth is that conventional (i.e., chemical and GMO-based) farming needs to change. The problems farmers face now — failing soils, lower yields, toxic working environments — can’t be “magicked” away with genetic engineering. In fact, GMOs just drive farming deeper into a failing, exploitative, chemically-dependent, industrial model.

In contrast, many see regenerative organic farming as the next evolving stage of organic farming, free-range livestock grazing and eco-system restoration. Rather than promising future benefits, regenerative farming can be put into practice and deliver measurable benefits right now. For the future’s sake, this is the path we need to take.

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