This information was sent to me by a colleague Rose Stevens in Canada. Not only did I think it was very clever, especially the anonymous graphic above, but the narrative that came with it. I don’t know whom to thank for this information other than the person who emailed it to me. So, I’m using it invoking 17 U.S. Code §107 Fair Use (news reporting):
Dr Anthony Samsel’s explanation on how glyphosate may be causing us to gain weight.
Simply put, Glyphosate disrupts bacterial homeostasis and our enzymes. With obesity, more precisely, glyphosate destroys the species of bacteria which manufacture 90% of our Serotonin as only 10% is manufactured by our body. Serotonin is necessary for the production of other important biomolecules like melatonin the precursor to melanin.
Serotonin is also a signaling molecule and affects Grehlin and Amylin which are gut derived hormones. Our Grehlin and Amylin are directly impacted and these biomolecules control our satiety. Eating is modulated via aminergic neurotransmitters within the hypothalamus. Amylin is a peptide hormone that is co-secreted with insulin from the pancreatic beta-cell and is thus deficient in diabetic people. It inhibits Glucagon secretion, delays gastric emptying and acts as a satiety agent. Grehlin inhibits the release of Serotonin in the brain and Amylin inhibits dopamine release while not affecting Serotonin or norepinephrine. So depending on the severity, two conditions can be created, obesity by overeating or the opposite end of the spectrum anorexia.
[Listen to Dr. Samsel explain what glyphosate does to the human gut in this YouTube video.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RmfWAnnu-RI#t=17
What I didn’t mention in that interview is that there is initial weight loss before weight gain. This was seen in laboratory animals fed a contaminated diet by glyphosate. We even saw this in worm experiments done by a student which Stephanie and I mentored. A lot of data was developed in the experiments which has not been published, but I evaluated the bacteria colonies and the effects that both GM proteins and glyphosate had on the soil communities and the effects exhibited on the worms. Both the stacked GM events and glyphosate caused distinct reactions in populations and weight gain .So, to sum up, Its all about the disruption of bacterial homeostasis, that is where obesity and all chronic disease begins. The imbalance and overgrowth of species causes obesity and it can also cause anorexia as well as worsening symptoms of autism, ADHD, other neurosis and a plethora of chronic disease states which include tumorigenic growth and cancers of major glands and organs.
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Carbohydrate metabolism, which include metabolization of the isomers of sugar are processed in different parts of the intestines, particularly in the ilea and secum, by different species of bacterial colonies. Some of the enzymes that metabolize sugar are sucrose-isomaltase, maltase-glucoamylase and lactase. Lactase metabolizes disaccharide and lactose (milk sugar) and this enzyme also lines the gut. Glyphosate disrupts such enzymes.
The homeostasis or balance of bacteria such as, Clostridia sp., Bacteriodetes sp., and Fecalis sp. Are three main species that show both increased weight gain and weight loss depending on their balance.
When gut bacteria are not in balance, they display hyperactive behavior and and produce biomolecules that interfere with the regulation of IGF-1, Insulin secretion, Amylin and Grehlin. Additionally, various species of bacteria release proteases which destroy immunoglobulins such as IgA, IgG and IgM, imbalances which can lead to immunodeficiencies and many different pathologies.
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Doctor Stephanie Seneff’s hypothesis on how glyphosate may be causing us to gain weight.
It’s not altogether clear how it’s happening (glyphosate making us fat) but I believe there’s very strong evidence to show that, when countries start to adopt a Western diet, that’s when they also start gaining weight. Anthony has some explanations based on serotonin, and that makes sense because serotonin deficiency is linked to obesity, and serotonin is a product of the shikimate pathway which glyphosate disrupts.
Another theory that I have is that fat (especially abdominal fat) is protective, because the body can hide toxic chemicals (like toxic phenols and PCBs, but also free iron and other metals that can be toxic) inside the fat cells, keeping the rest of the body safe from exposure.
Glyphosate makes these toxins much more toxic in part because it interferes with CYP enzymes that degrade them (in the case of the organic compounds) and because it disrupts the body’s normal management of metals (e.g., it interferes with the synthesis of pyrrole, a building block of heme, which is needed for safe iron transport). It also interferes with bile flow, which is needed to redistribute manganese to the body.
So obesity becomes protective in the context of glyphosate because the poisons that can’t be degraded can be hidden safely inside the fat cells.
Yet another theory is that glyphosate probably disrupts the metabolism of fructose by gut microbes to PEP (phosphoenolpyruvate) which would normally then go on to become an aromatic amino acid (this is the shikimate pathway). Because shikimate is blocked, PEP piles up, and this prevents the microbes from converting fructose to PEP. Instead, they convert it to short chain fatty acids, which are then stored in the abdominal space
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Doctor Nancy Swanson’s hypothesis on how glyphosate may be causing us to gain weight.
I also think that it somehow (mechanism not clear) disrupts lipid metabolism. The body is not digesting/metabolizing the fats. There are excess fats in the bloodstream and the body tries to sock them away somewhere.
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Dr. Don Huber: GMOs and Glyphosate and Their Threat to Humanity YouTube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xKcjT5QK3Lg#t=15
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What’s in your genes?
Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.
Catherine’s latest book, published October 4, 2013, is Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, available on Amazon.com.
Her 2012 book A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.
Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008)
I strongly suspect that Dr. Nancy Swanson’s suggestion that glyphosate disrupts lipid metabolism is the main way that it can cause obesity. I truly question whether bacteria produce most of the serotonin in the body. Worms have a very different metabolism than people. However, both grehlin and leptin act on fat cells and the disruption in their behavior is associated with obesity.
We have fat reserves for many reasons. When I cut into any vertebrate (take a close look at chicken when you cut up one for cooking its parts), I see 2 types of white (yellow) fat (exclude the third type, brown fat, in this discussion). One is structural and is often strongly linked with connective tissue to create protective shock absorbing fat, as in the butt, feet, palms, etc. It is the one that makes cellulite, thus you can’t get rid of cellulite with exercise. It also is responsible for thermoregulation, allowing us to retain heat where needed. This fat is pretty much permanent since you can see it in warm, cooked chicken, as ribbons of fat.
The other type is metabolizable, since it is liquid when warmed up. It is critical for storing lipids from what we eat, since the carbs we eat break down to sugars, which will be used up for energy within 20 min after we eat, unless we load our bodies with so much carb that it gets turned into fat. That metabolizable fat is meant for being broken down to energy the rest of the time between meals.
Connective tissue (tendons, ligaments, fat, bone) has many jobs, but one of them is to sequester foreign objects (the capsulation of implants is one) and toxins (cysts, sacs, bone-all store toxins). Pesticides and some other toxins are naturally attracted to fat and so fat does protect us from toxins by sequestering them, to some degree. However, toxins will cause breakdown in fat, as well as disruption in transport, so that lipids cannot get to the fat cells for storage, or the toxin can prevent entry of critical enzymes (or hormones like grehlin and leptin) into the cell, so that metabolism cannot occur. In other words, it can render this metabolizable fat cell unusable. When there is too much circulating lipid (because the fat cells can’t take it in), the liver calls for more fat cells to be made, thus increasing the amount of fat in the body. Toxins can then just amplify and create a never-ending chain of events.