Environmental Stressors
Each year an estimated 4.5 billion pounds of the herbicide and crop desiccant glyphosate (the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup) is deliberately sprayed on our home. It is water soluble, which means that in addition to being sprayed on the crops, it is absorbed into the soil, into the water table, and by extension, everything else. It acts on the shikimate pathway in plants, interrupting the synthesis of 3 essential amino acids (tryptophan, phenylalanine, and tyrosine). There are 9 essential amino acids, termed such because humans cannot produce them and need to obtain them from food. We make important hormones and neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, dopamine, and epinephrine, among many others from the 3 essential amino acids that this chemical blocks in plant biosynthesis. Even though human cells do not have this pathway, the bacteria in our gut do.
The EPA states that glyphosate is safe and there are “no risks of concern to human health from current uses of glyphosate.” On a related note, it took the EPA 30 years to identify, acknowledge, and then ban the use of the insecticide DDT owing to adverse environmental, wildlife, and human effects. One of the more interesting correlations with the end of the polio epidemic in the United States in the early 1960s other than the introduction of the Sabin and Salk vaccines, was the phasing out of DDT domestically. DDT was known to poison nerve tissue, specifically the anterior horn cells of the spinal cord, producing the same clinical presentation as paralytic polio. Correlation does not equal causation and there is always more than one reason for why a virus appears to “cause” serious and scary illness. It behoves us to consider a larger perspective: one that includes the impact of introducing significant quantities of toxic chemicals into the environment, directly or indirectly into our bodies.
The EPA position is an interesting one, since glyphosate is devastating to the human gut biome and damages the tight junctions of the cells that line the gut and the blood-brain barrier. The mucosal linings of our body and the microbes that symbiotically host us are two of the primary ways we maintain balance with the environment. They are cornerstones of our immune system. I believe we are seeing the cumulative impact of nearly 50 years of progressively increasing the use of chemicals that are toxic to water, soil, and the biological systems that maintain life on our planet. The mainstream conversation about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions has largely ignored the carbon capture and storage afforded by healthy soil. Perhaps more importantly, I think the terrestrial information substrates (e.g. mycelia and microflora) that know how to create and sustain life on this planet live in the soil.
We are not separate from nature. Ecosystem describes the relationship of living things to their environment; oikos from the Greek “house, or dwelling.” To continue on this course of chemical escalation in an hubristic attempt to control nature is not simply absurd, it is obviously and profoundly dangerous. Our ability to inhabit our planet in a healthy and meaningful way starts at home.
Things you can do:
Grow your own food
Buy local, organic, and regenerative
Don’t spray Roundup
Encourage your neighbors to not spray Roundup
Combining concentrated vinegar and epsom salt is great anti-“weed” method