Human health
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Last updated
Analysis
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Low intake of whole grains was the leading dietary risk factor for disability-adjusted life-years among men and women and the leading dietary risk factor for mortality among women.
The health of livestock, humans, and environments is tied to plant diversity—and associated phytochemical richness—across landscapes. Health is enhanced when livestock forage on phyto-chemically rich landscapes, is reduced when livestock forage on simple mixture or monoculture pastures or consume high-grain rations in feedlots, and is greatly reduced for people who eat highly processed diets. This extensive scientific literature review provides an updated evidence base about the link between landscape health, livestock health and human health.
Healthy eating is not more expensive than unhealthy eating.
A meta-analysis of the published comparisons of the content of secondary metabolites and vitamins in organically and conventionally produced fruits and vegetables showed that in organic produce the content of secondary metabolites is 12% higher than in corresponding conventional samples ( P< 0.0001).
To date, comparisons of nutrient content between organic and conventional foods have been inconsistent. Recent evidence suggests that organically grown fruits and vegetables contain higher levels of health promoting phytochemicals, possibly linked to greater plant stress, rhizosphere microbial communities, and/or lower available nitrogen. But the overlap in management practices among farming systems make broad generalizations difficult. Moreover, environmental and crop species and/or cultivar interactions may exert stronger effects than management
The consumption of an organic diet for one week significantly reduced OP pesticide exposure in adults.
A detailed overview is given of the scientific literature on the movement and residues of glyphosate and its breakdown product aminomethyl phosphonic acid (AMPA) in soil and water, their toxicity to macro- and microorganisms, their effects on microbial compositions and potential indirect effects on plant, animal and human health.
The health and environmental risks associated with glyphosate documented in peer reviewed scientific literature is extensive.
Glyphosate perturbs the gut microbiota of honey bees"" and ""affects non-target organisms, for example, changing the behaviour of honey bees, reducing reproduction of soil-dwelling earthworms, and affecting the growth of microalgae and aquatic bacteria. Glyphosate is also associated with changes in plant endophytic and rhizosphere microbiomes"".
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/09/18/1803880115"
Glyphosate was found to promote the epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of disease and pathology through germline (i.e. sperm) epimutations. Negligible pathology was observed in the F0 and F1 generations, while a significant increase in pathology and disease was observed in the F2 generation grand-offspring and F3 generation great-grand-offspring. Therefore, glyphosate appears to have a low or negligible toxic risk for direct exposure, but promotes generational toxicology in future generations. Observations suggest generational toxicology needs to be incorporated into the risk assessment of glyphosate and all other potential toxicants, as previously described
Intestinal Permeability is strongly associated with autoimmune disease and liver conditions, with the estimated prevalence of 25–87.5% and 17–65% respectively. IP also correlates with diabetes (30–65%), food allergies/ hypersensitivity, irritable bowel syndrome (35.6%), polycystic ovary syndrome and autism (36.7%). Disease severity in addition to clinical symptoms of menstrual disorders, food allergy or hypersensitivity directly correlates with IP. Finally, the severity of IP appears to be exacerbated by the presence of dysbiosis, inflammation and glucose metabolism disorders. Factors that may increase IP include: dysbiosis and Systemic inflammation
Glyphosate modifies microorganism’s composition in gut by direct action on beneficial bacteria. Glyphosate likely impacts on central nervous system and other neuro-biological disorders via this gut dysbiosis due to the gut-brain axis.
In summary, this investigation shows that Glyphosate and Roundup alter the Sertoli cell junction barrier permeability. This study also shows that, at least in part, the loss of location of claudin11 at the interface between neighboring Sertoli cells might be responsible for the disassemble of the barrier. This has implications for male reproductive function.
Agricultural pesticides can become persistent environmental pollutants. Among many, glyphosate (GLP) is under particular scrutiny because of its extensive use and its alleged threats to the ecosystem and human health. Here, we introduce the first global environmental contamination analysis of GLP and its metabolite, AMPA, conducted with a mechanistic dynamic model at 0.5 × 0.5° spatial resolution (about 55 km at the equator) fed with geographically-distributed agricultural quantities, soil and biogeochemical properties, and hydroclimatic variables. Our analyses reveal that about 1% of croplands worldwide (385,000 km2) are susceptible to mid to high contamination hazard and less than 0.1% has a high hazard. Hotspots found in South America, Europe, and East and South Asia were mostly correlated to widespread GLP use in pastures, soybean, and corn; diffuse contributing processes were mainly biodegradation recalcitrance and persistence, while soil residue accumulation and leaching below the root zone contributed locally to the hazard in hotspots. Hydroclimatic and soil variables were major controlling factors of contamination hotspots. The relatively low risk of environmental exposure highlighted in our work for a single active substance does not rule out a greater recognition of environmental pollution by pesticides and calls for worldwide cooperation to develop timely standards and implement regulated strategies to prevent excess global environmental pollution.
The health of livestock, humans, and environments is tied to plant diversity—and associated phytochemical richness—across landscapes. Health is enhanced when livestock forage on phytochemically rich landscapes, is reduced when livestock forage on simple mixture or monoculture pastures or consume high-grain rations in feedlots, and is greatly reduced for people who eat highly processed diets. Circumstantial evidence supports the hypothesis that phytochemical richness of herbivore diets enhances biochemical richness of meat and dairy, which is linked with human and environmental health. Among many roles they play in health, phytochemicals in herbivore diets protect meat and dairy from protein oxidation and lipid peroxidation that cause low-grade systemic inflammation implicated in heart disease and cancer in humans. Yet, epidemiological and ecological studies critical of red meat consumption do not discriminate among meats from livestock fed high-grain rations as opposed to livestock foraging on landscapes of increasing phytochemical richness. The global shift away from phytochemically and biochemically rich wholesome foods to highly processed diets enabled 2.1 billion people to become overweight or obese and increased the incidence of type II diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Unimpeded, these trends will add to a projected substantial increase in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) from producing food and clearing land by 2050. While agriculture contributes one quarter of GHGE, livestock can play a sizable role in climate mitigation. Of 80 ways to alleviate climate change, regenerative agriculture—managed grazing, silvopasture, tree intercropping, conservation agriculture, and farmland restoration—jointly rank number one as ways to sequester GHG. Mitigating the impacts of people in the Anthropocene can be enabled through diet to improve human and environmental health, but that will require profound changes in society. People will have to learn we are members of nature’s communities. What we do to them, we do to ourselves. Only by nurturing them can we nurture ourselves.