Dr Rupy: Professor Antoniou, it's such a pleasure to have you in the podcast room with us today at the Doctor's Kitchen studio. How are you doing?
Professor Michael Antoniou: I'm very well Rupy and it's a really a great pleasure and an honour to be here to discuss with you what is an incredibly important subject that's going to affect everybody.
Dr Rupy: I appreciate that.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Affects everybody now and it's increasingly so.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. Yeah, we've learned so much from you already, you know, reading some of your work and some of the work that you've done with PAN, Pesticide Action Network. And the privilege is ours. I wonder if you wouldn't mind just giving a bit of your background to our audience, and just assume I don't know anything about glyphosate as well, because I really want to channel sort of the the complete lack of knowledge that I think a lot of people have around this pesticide and, you know, the wider world of pesticides in general. So.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yeah, absolutely. So, basically, I'm um, I'm Professor of Molecular Genetics and Toxicology at King's College London, one of the UK's great universities, I like to boast. Um, although I have to say I've recently retired. I'm now a Professor Emeritus with King's College London, which means I still involved with research both within the university and elsewhere. But historically, I'm a molecular biologist, so I've studied the structure and function of genes and used that knowledge to for biotechnological applications such as gene therapy medicines and industrial production of protein therapeutics like antibodies. But since 2014, 13, 14, I also expanded my research platform at King's to include what I call molecular toxicology with a focus on pesticides. So using my background in molecular biology, using that kind of technology, I've been investigating at a molecular and cellular level the impact of pesticides, but with a special focus on glyphosate herbicides. And since then, we've published tens of papers on on the topic and I'd like, again, I like to believe we've become one of the world leading groups on glyphosate herbicide toxicology in the world. So that that's briefly my background and and what brings me here.
Dr Rupy: Brilliant. Um, I wonder if you wouldn't mind explaining exactly what glyphosate is. When I think of glyphosate, I don't think of it as a UK problem. I don't think a lot of people would think of glyphosate as a UK problem, but what is glyphosate and why should we all be concerned about it?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yeah, this is a very, very good question, because probably most people have never even heard about it. Probably the people who have heard about it are people who have gardens and they probably buy glyphosate herbicide under the brand name Roundup from their garden centres or whatever and they spray the weeds in their garden to kill them. But basically glyphosate is actually the world's most used herbicide and actually the world's most used pesticide full stop ever in history. And and on as far as being a weed killer is concerned, it's incredibly good and that's why it's been adopted so widely. But there was an actually, there was a massive escalation in the use of glyphosate herbicides starting in 1996 with the launch of genetically engineered, genetically modified crops such as soy and maize that are engineered to be tolerant to glyphosate. So what farmers were able to do was to basically spray their crop with glyphosate herbicides, kill the weeds, but their crop wouldn't die. And and that the adoption of these glyphosate tolerant crops has massively increased over the years. Although it's been very concentrated in North and South America pretty much and a few other nations around the world. But glyphosate is not just used within GM cropping systems. It's also used in general agricultural practices as well. And the one that's particularly worrying for me, and which is used widely in the UK is is its use not only to clear weeds in fields before you sow the next crop. But also as what's known as a pre-harvest desiccant. And this is going to really shock you because it was really shocking to me when I heard about this. Basically, for farmers that especially this pertains to farmers that are growing cereal crops such as oats and wheat, barley, rye, but even some legumes as well, pulses. But what what what the farmer does is this, within a week or two of when they want to harvest the crop, they spray it with glyphosate herbicides such as Roundup. And they intentionally kill the crop to dry it down, hence the term desiccant. So this way they they they say they get a more uniform drying of the grain and they're able to harvest earlier in the in the cultivation cycle and get to market earlier and make a bigger profit that that kind of thing. Now all well and good for the farmer, but what this means is that within a few days of spraying your wheat, your oats with Roundup glyphosate herbicide, you're harvesting, which means there hasn't been any time for the glyphosate and its associated chemicals to dissipate. So you end up with the food being contaminated, whether it's bread, breakfast cereals, those sorts of things are can be contaminated with glyphosate herbicide. Many years ago now, the Soil Association conducted a project led by Peter Melchett who looked at bread and on the supermarket shelves, you know, they just sort of analysed for glyphosate and they found that over 30% of the bread in the on the shelves in supermarkets here in the UK is contaminated with glyphosate herbicide.
Dr Rupy: 30%?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yeah, 30% is contaminated. It could be higher now because the use of glyphosate as a pre-harvest desiccant if anything has been going up and up and up. They didn't look at other things which I think they should have where it could be even higher and that is on oats. In the United States when a similar surveys were conducted by an NGO called the Environmental Working Group, they found the highest residues of glyphosate in oat products, porridge, porridge oats, oat granola, all that kind of thing. Really massive, absolutely massive amounts. Um, and, but I'm glad to say there the amount as the years have gone by, clearly the industry took note and the levels have been coming down. But here in the UK, I don't think anything like that has happened.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Professor Michael Antoniou: There hasn't been a survey of foodstuffs for glyphosate residues here.
Dr Rupy: There hasn't been?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Not recently anyway. So we don't know what the levels and scale of the contamination is, but I think it would be very, very interesting. My my educated guess would be that it it will be higher now than it was when the Soil Association conducted its survey several years ago. So it's been used for widely in agriculture, but also we have to bear in mind that it's also used in urban environments. Councils will spray to clear weeds of pavements, in parks, along in other words, along the roads and in parks. It also the the the railway companies they will spray along railway tracks to clear weeds along there. And so and so people going into parks playing with children especially playing in parks that have recently been sprayed with glyphosate herbicides and they're rolling around in the grass or whatever around playing around, they're going to be picking this up. Um, and then of course as I mentioned earlier the got in your garden, you know, when you when you're spraying to get clear your weeds with glyphosate in your garden, you're going to be picking this up. Especially if you don't protect yourself because think about glyphosate, you know, the way it is, it will it's not only through eating it in your food, but you can inhale it if you're spraying with it from the aerosol, you can you can breathe it in and if you get some on your skin, it will it readily just penetrate through your skin and
Dr Rupy: Really?
Professor Michael Antoniou: and do that. Which is why again in surveys in the United States, the highest residue levels of glyphosate in humans has been found in agricultural workers, applicators in agricultural settings and in people that are routinely spraying it like in school playgrounds or and other urban settings as well. Really very high worrying levels.
Dr Rupy: Because I see those people in the council, you know, there's hard working folk with the the high vis vests on and they're going around they're spraying all the weeds and I'm walking my dog at the same time and I've just thought nothing of it to be honest. And then I realized it was actually Roundup and I'm thinking to myself, my dog sniffs everything, licks everything, chomps at some of those little weeds in the corners of the pavement and stuff. So she's probably getting exposed to glyphosate as well.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Indeed. Indeed. It's not just humans but also animals that are being exposed, but also animal farm animals are getting even much higher doses even than humans. Whether it's especially those animals that are given high protein like soy and and maize that are imported from North and South America. Virtually all, almost 100% of the soy and the corn or maize as we call it here in Europe, crops in North and South America are glyphosate tolerant GM crops. So they're coming in with huge residue levels and I mean huge, very, very high levels of glyphosate herbicide contamination and that's going straight into the animal feed. And so our animals are actually being our farm animals are actually being exposed to really quite high levels.
Dr Rupy: And is there a particular reason why it tends to be cereals, grains, maize or corn?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Well, for these two reasons I mentioned earlier, Rupy, which is the the pre-harvest desiccation of the cereal crops and the genetic glyphosate tolerant genetically modified.
Dr Rupy: Gotcha. So those tend to be those.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Those are the major ones for sure.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Let's talk about the mechanism of action actually for glyphosate and perhaps that will allow us to meander into a conversation as to why this is potentially detrimental to humans as well. So glyphosate was created when was it like 1950s?
Professor Michael Antoniou: 1950s glyphosate was invented by a German chemist in the 1950s and it wasn't and initially it was marketed as a as a metal chelator. I.e. it's a glyphosate binds and there are I'll come back to this because there are health implications of this as well. But glyphosate was invented, people didn't actually know what to do with it initially and then eventually it was found that it could bind metals.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: And it was patented as what's known as a metal chelator as a metal binder and it was initially sold as something that you can clear metal deposits in pipes, like calcium deposits in pipes. So it was a pipe cleaner.
Dr Rupy: Wow.
Professor Michael Antoniou: And it wasn't until the 1970s that Monsanto company in the United States discovered actually that it it acted as a herbicide. And and that's when its use suddenly began to increase. And the way it acts as a herbicide is that it inhibits a an enzyme that's part of a biochemical pathway present in plants called the shikimate pathway. And the shikimate pathway which is responsible among other things for producing in plants the what are known as the essential aromatic amino acids. If you block it with glyphosate, you block that pathway with glyphosate, the plant can't can't synthesize its essential amino acids anymore, it can't synthesize its proteins anymore, and so it dies. And it dies quite quickly.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Uh so it's very it's very effective. And because the shikimate pathway doesn't exist in animals and humans, it was thought, well this is it was always then claimed, well it's got to be completely safe for for us and for animals that may contain it. Of course, what was ignored at the time by the industry who was pushing this claim was firstly that there are different ways for glyphosate can be toxic other than blocking the shikimate pathway and I'll come back to those mechanisms shortly. But also, of course, our gut bacteria, many species in our the bacteria in our gut do have the shikimate pathway. And and perhaps glyphosate herbicides can block the shikimate pathway in our gut bacteria and cause imbalance in our gut bacterial population, what we call gut dysbiosis, which can lead to ill health. And I probably to your listeners, I'm sure they're all familiar just how important balance of the gut microbiome is for for health. Imbalance in the gut not just the population of bacteria, but more importantly in its function, its biochemistry. Imbalance in this, dysbiosis in this has now been linked to a plethora of chronic diseases. Not only in the gut itself, like with inflammatory bowel disease and that kind of thing, but in more distant locations in the body, whether it's liver disease, immune system imbalance, even behavioural problems because of the gut, the gut microbiome, gut liver axis. You disturb that two-way communication through gut dysbiosis and you can end up with behavioural problems such as contribute to autism and ADHD in in youngsters. Um, and and even to cancers as well. There is a link between gut dysbiosis and and gut and and different cancer initiation and progression as well. So it's very, very important. So anything that disturbs the gut microbiome is not a good thing and we now have not just work from my own lab, which again kind of like pioneered the that work showing glyphosate gut dysbiosis connection, but many other labs, you know, we now have some pretty clear evidence that firstly the shikimate pathway in the gut microbiome is blocked by ingestion of glyphosate herbicides. And but also more importantly, the biochemistry of the gut is disturbed by exposure to glyphosate herbicides, particularly resulting in what we call oxidative stress, which is a very damaging cell, molecular, DNA damaging outcome in the body.
Dr Rupy: So we have the situation where it's been generally regarded as safe because we didn't appreciate the fact that we have trillions of cells in our body that can be affected by glyphosate. Um and it only apparently has an impact in plants. Um you mentioned earlier that 30% of bread had glyphosate residues on in the UK supermarkets. Given all this um interest, not interest, given how ubiquitous glyphosate is now, how many of us in the UK are actually exposed to it? Do do we have a semblance of like how much is actually in our systems at a population level?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yes, we do actually, although it's it's limited. My group has been the only one, and I don't mean this to boast, but to say in a way how shameful the regulators have been in not monitoring for this really, but my group has been the only one that has looked at glyphosate residues in the urine of human of humans, UK citizens. We conducted this several years ago and published it. And what we found there was that over 50% of the people we surveyed, it was 168 of them, from different parts of the country, more than 50% of them, I think it was 53% had readily detectable levels of glyphosate in their urine.
Dr Rupy: Wow.
Professor Michael Antoniou: So if we can extrapolate from that, we would we would argue that over 50% of the people in the UK at any given time are going to have glyphosate residues exposure from different sources, mostly for us living in cities, it'll be mostly from food ingestion. That'll be the the primary source. Uh in in rural environments could also be from from when the herbicide is sprayed by farmers during their cultivation cycles. Um so it is it is there is a wide level of exposure. In the United States it's virtually 100%, but that's because you know, it's so much more, you know, the wide scale use, large scale use of glyphosate in the USA is so much greater because of the glyphosate tolerant genetically modified crops as well as the pre-harvest desiccation. All the surveys that have been conducted there have found essentially 100% of different varying levels. They tend to be higher again in the United States than in Europe, but nevertheless we we find that. And and also there's been surveys conducted on the on the continent here in the European continent, very similar results. Yeah. Um, I can't remember the exact percentage but readily detectable levels of glyphosate in a high percentage of people. Um, so it is, it is as you say, it's almost ubiquitous out there in the environment. So it's very difficult to to avoid uh actually. So it is very worrying. I should add perhaps though that in the in the UK human urine samples were analysed for glyphosate, we actually analysed for over 160 other pesticides as well. And we found that all of them, 100% of the urine samples were positive for pyrethroid and organophosphate insecticides at rather worrying levels as well.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Professor Michael Antoniou: So again, it was it showed you that we we're not just exposed to one, but as expected, we the UK population and probably and it's generally we're not trying to single out the UK here, but people are generally exposed to a large cocktail of pesticides on a daily basis, which includes glyphosate as the only herbicide because it's just the most widely used.
Dr Rupy: Gotcha. So you've probably had pushback from industry about this. Imagine I'm a lobbyist and I say, all right, professor, I get it, but, you know, just because it's got uh just because 50% of the UK population have got glyphosate in their urine, doesn't mean that it's at a harmful level. We just pee it out, the clearance is in a few days, nothing to see here. What what what would your rebuttal be to that?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yes, indeed, we've had a lot of pushback on our work along those lines from industry and and their academic collaborators, colleagues, whatever. Um, well, let's we in order to assess whether first of all, people are be the level of glyphosate in our in people's bodies is being topped up daily. It's not like you get exposed one day and then nothing. Clearly, if you're eating the same things, doing the same things each day, you're going to be getting like almost like a daily top up of this. So it's a constant daily exposure level that we're talking about here, whether in Europe, UK, North America. And the levels that are found in urine, um, imply, again, we can't do the human studies really to prove it. But based on what we know about ingestion rates and and secretion, you know, elimination rates, we've it's been calculated that um the level of ingestion on a daily basis is is quite low. It's about in the low microgram per kilogram body weight per day. That's a a microgram is a millionth of a gram. So it is really very small. And so it is a small amount and that might give the impression that, oh, you know, why should I be worried about this? Well, actually, when we do experiments, again, obviously we can't do experiments in humans because it's unethical. So we use what are uh regulatory accepted studies in laboratory animals, mostly in in rats and others have done in in mice as well. But in a let let to just to show you how such a tiny amount of glyphosate herbicide exposure can be harmful. We we analysed the uh the livers and the kidneys of rats exposed to a glyphosate herbicide for two years. And the and the amount of glyphosate that they were ingesting, these rats for a two-year period was uh let's see, what was it? It was basically um it it was incredibly low. I called it an ultra low dose. I'm trying to think up of the the figure now. It was roughly about a thousand times lower, at least a thousand times lower than what somebody may be ingesting typically in North America at least and maybe even maybe not at least a hundred times lower.
Dr Rupy: Okay. A hundred times lower. So orders of magnitude much lower than what.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Oh yeah, at least two orders of magnitude lower.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: And yet when we looked at these organs uh of these rats, especially the liver, we found that at the end of the two-year period of exposure, the animals suffered what what's known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. So, and what's that? Now, fatty liver disease is is pandemic. You know, we've got about 30% of people in the UK who suffer from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Fatty liver disease is a serious thing. It's a because it can progress to more serious fatty liver conditions leading to cirrhosis and liver cancer. So fatty liver disease is a known risk factor for cirrhosis and liver cancer. So you don't, you know, it's not something to scoff at basically. So anything again that constitutes a risk factor for developing fatty liver disease, you want to really try to avoid. Yeah. Especially if it's being caused by very low levels of exposure. And in and so my group was the first to identify exposure to glyphosate herbicides as a risk factor for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. And and that's been built on by other groups uh around the world. They've done other animal studies both in my own group and elsewhere, animal studies, but also some epidemiological human survey work has also uh found that people with the more the more serious your non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, the higher the levels of glyphosate you have in your body. So there's an association there.
Dr Rupy: Gotcha.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Um that's been found um as well.
Dr Rupy: People must be thinking.
Professor Michael Antoniou: So that was the so I I use that as an example to show that even low levels of glyphosate given enough time can lead to a serious chronic illness. And so uh these levels that people, you know, the levels you find in food leading to a daily intake level that are regulators say is safe, I would say there's scientific evidence that that is not the case. The the for me the most striking finding that was published earlier this year in June was actually a a carcinogenicity study in rats led by the Ramazzini Institute in Italy, which I was involved in as well. And what these rats were exposed to again, starting from mid gestation from prenatal in the womb and then for two years of life after birth, they were exposed to glyphosate alone or two different types of commercial glyphosate formulation.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Why is there why do we need to make a distinction there? When you buy glyphosate herbicide from a shop, it's not just a glyphosate solution in water.
Dr Rupy: Right.
Professor Michael Antoniou: In fact, if you sprayed a plant with a glyphosate solution in water, nothing's going to happen because the glyphosate can't get in inside the plant to act as a herbicide. So what the manufacturers have to do is to add additional chemicals that basically weaken the plant cell walls, punch holes basically in the plant cell walls, allowing the glyphosate to get in and then it can kill the plant. Now, it turns out that and again, my my group has done a lot of work on this, is that these additional chemicals that are present in the commercial glyphosate formulations that farmers use and gardeners use at home or are being sprayed along the streets or in school playgrounds. Um, they're highly toxic in their own right. So that's why in a properly conducted study, you've not only just got to look at glyphosate on its own, but you've got to also compare it to a representative commercial formulation of the product. And that's what we did in this the Ramazzini Institute study with the carcinogenicity study I mentioned, that's what we did. We had glyphosate alone at three doses and we had these two formulations, a representative European commercial glyphosate formulation and and one sold in the United States. All of them were carcinogenic.
Dr Rupy: Wow.
Professor Michael Antoniou: And most worryingly, they were carcinogenic causing many different types of cancer, leukaemia, liver cancer, skin cancers, brain cancers, you know, a really a very wide range of different cancers resulted in these animals. Highly, it's highly statistically significant. Most worryingly, the lowest dose these animals received, what's known what's known as the European and UK acceptable daily intake of glyphosate. What is the acceptable daily intake? The acceptable daily intake of a chemical is what a regulator says you can ingest on a daily basis, day in, day out for all of your life and suffer no adverse health consequences.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: So the lowest dose in this animal experiment was the European and UK acceptable daily acceptable daily intake of glyphosate, which is 0.5 milligrams per kilogram body weight per day.
Dr Rupy: 5 milligrams per kilogram.
Professor Michael Antoniou: 0.5. 0.5 milligrams per kilogram body weight per day. Massive cancers resulted.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Many, especially leukaemia and skin cancer.
Dr Rupy: Oh my gosh.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Many, many cancers were being caused by the glyphosate alone, just as bad as the commercial formulations. So meaning that the glyphosate was really the cause here, it wasn't the additional chemicals in the formulations. They didn't do anything extra in in these particular cancers. But at what but at a dose that the regulator says should be completely safe. So what does that tell us? It means that the regulator has clearly got it wrong and that the what the regulator says is an acceptable, perfectly safe daily intake level actually is not safe at all and that the level of daily ingestion at the moment, I need to say that based on the evidence from the this carcinogenicity study, but also other studies including earlier ones like this, the one I mentioned about the fatty liver connection, I would say at the moment that we don't know what a safe dose daily dose of glyphosate is.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Because think about it, you know, you've got even the acceptable daily intake is clearly causing cancer. And the way you the way the regulator set an an acceptable daily intake.
Dr Rupy: That was going to be my next question actually.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Is what they do is they feed lower and lower amounts of the chemical to the animals until they get to a dose where they reach what's known as the no observed adverse effect level.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: No observed adverse effect level or NOAEL.
Dr Rupy: NOAEL.
Professor Michael Antoniou: And once they've established a NOAEL, they then for the fact that this study was done in rats and there's obviously great variation in in the human population, they add a 100-fold safety, they they put in a 100-fold safety margin and say, yeah, the NOAEL in Europe as it said is 50 milligrams per kilogram body weight per day of glyphosate, and we're going to add a 100-fold safety margin. So from 50 it comes down to 0.5 milligrams per kilogram body weight per day. But what the latest study has shown us especially is that the NOAEL, the sorry, the the what's considered as the ADI is not the NOAEL.
Dr Rupy: Okay, wow.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Because that's still caused the cancer.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: So where do we stand? It means we don't actually know the NOAEL for glyphosate anymore. We thought we did.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: But now with the latest science, say it that was wrong. And we don't actually know the NOAEL. And if we don't know the if we don't know the NOAEL, we can't set the acceptable daily intake. So where does where does that leave us? It leaves us with a situation where we don't actually at the moment, all the science is saying we don't know what is a safe dose, a daily ingestion rate of glyphosate is. For me, what that argues is that we we need to look at this very carefully and revise the exposure levels downwards massively. I would say initially at least a hundredfold.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Just as an extra safety.
Dr Rupy: Just as an extra, just as a precaution because it's people's health we're talking about here. Yes, it may inconvenience industry and farmers or whatever, but there are alternatives of course to using glyphosate. It's just that farmers have become rather addicted to it because it's it's rather effective at what it does. Uh and of course it's been boasted as being, you know, particularly safe to handle and to use.
Dr Rupy: I just want to reiterate that for the listener just so they understand that. So the acceptable daily intake is set by looking at animal studies where they determine that this is the lowest dose that doesn't cause a toxic effect. And then to create a buffer of safety, they revise that down a hundredfold to create the NOAEL, which is the no no observed.
Professor Michael Antoniou: No. You you you establish the NOAEL. And then you divide that by 100 to get the ADI or the acceptable daily intake.
Dr Rupy: Oh, apologies. Okay. I'm glad we did that because it wasn't it wasn't clear in my mind. So you do it the other way around to get the ADI. So there's that margin of safety.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Correct.
Dr Rupy: And what you're saying is in the latest studies, that ADI, which is meant to be, you know, inclusive of that buffer of safety, is still toxic.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Correct. That's absolutely right.
Dr Rupy: And in terms of like how much we're being exposed to even despite the ADI, is it above the ADI currently? Do we have an assemblage as to what what level of exposure we're actually.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Oh, the daily exposure is lower than the ADI.
Dr Rupy: Oh, it is lower than the ADI. Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: I would say it is lower than the ADI. Even with agricultural workers, it may be lower, although they may be pushing it for at the time when they're spraying and if they haven't protected themselves properly. Yeah. Uh particularly, they may um they may for a limited period be getting up pushing the ADI. But for us for consumers generally, you're going to be below the ADI. But again, that doesn't mean it's a safe level of daily ingestion all the same because we know the ADI is wrong and we don't know what the real ADI is. And it's possible that the ADI is actually, you know, we're exceeding what would be a true ADI. If we were to do, for example, if we were to do this cancer study with the with the animals and then just keep reducing the dose and find out what the lowest dose of glyphosate is that doesn't give the cancers. Um, it's possible that it could we could end up with an ADI that's even lower than what the daily ingestion is right now. It's it's a speculation obviously, but the point is with with these unknowns there, we need to, you know, we're talking about very serious illnesses here. Fatty liver disease, cancers, in in other contexts, glyphosate has been shown uh more more in the agricultural rural areas where large scale um glyphosate use on genetically modified crops has been undertaken, people have been shown to suffer from neurological defects and birth defects, you know, as well as cancers. So, um, there are, you know, there are many different conditions now that have been linked with glyphosate exposure. But I think the main ones for for us here to concern ourselves with are probably the fatty liver condition and the cancers.
Dr Rupy: A lot of people might be thinking to themselves, okay, I get glyphosate can cause these issues to my uh potentially cause my these issues to my gut microbiota and create oxidative stress. We'll go back to the metal chelation element as well. Um, how does that relate to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease? Like is there a mechanism of action or is it mediated by the fact that you're you're disrupting that gut barrier, that that uh gut microbiome?
Professor Michael Antoniou: I think um the the way in which the the the liver damage is taking place is both direct and indirect. I think the the glyphosate herbicide is directly causing uh tissue damage. First of all, we have shown that glyphosate herbicides will cause oxidative stress and DNA damage in liver. Okay. Now the oxidative stress is probably the mechanism by which the DNA damage is taking place. DNA damage, the number one risk factor for cancer. Yeah. And you know, there's for me the evidence is absolutely clear that glyphosate and glyphosate herbicides are DNA damaging agents. The evidence is very, very clear. I've seen it in my own lab. You know. And I've seen this uh you know, particularly we focused on the liver because it's the major organ uh that things, you know, from the gut, um as you know that we have a vein, it's called the portal vein and so the nutrients and other things from the gut drain straight to the liver and the liver has to sort all that out. So it's the primary site for for where toxins from the gut can end up. Yeah. So we um so but we've got the glyphosate getting into the circulation, it's going to directly affect the liver. But through gut but from gut dysbiosis, the the liver can also be negatively impacted by the glyphosate indirectly because we know that if we again, um we've shown and many groups now have shown but I again, we were the first to show just how bad glyphosate, glyphosate herbicides can be in causing what we call gut dysbiosis in terms of changing the population of bacteria and fungi in our gut from a nice balance to having different bacteria going up, other bacteria coming down, including reductions in bacteria that are are secreting our what known as short chain fatty acids. Short chain fatty acids are very important because they're immune system modulators. If we if we block that, then our immune system ends up being imbalanced. And with an imbalanced immune system, it's not just leaving you prone to um infections, but other other internal body conditions as well. Yeah. So we so we know that glyphosate herbicides cause imbalance in bacteria and fungal populations. Uh and but also more importantly, they can cause disturbance in their biochemistry. In our very first study it was very interesting actually because we looked at the populations of bacteria and we saw some changes but they were fairly modest. But when we looked at the biochemistry of the gut, we found massive changes in the um in the biochemistry of the gut. And the most striking thing that threw was thrown up was uh the oxidative stress which can damage the the cells um and the functioning of the gut in general. In our most recent work uh which I presented at a conference earlier this year is that how glyphosate uh can result in uh compromised gut integrity. What do I mean by that? That's a very fancy scientific uh way of saying leaky gut. Yeah. And now why is that bad? It means that if if the gut becomes leaky, it means that partially digested food and other gut components such as gut bacterial components can enter not only the circulation but the portal vein and these enter the liver and they can cause inflammation in the liver and causing inflammation in the liver can can lead to fatty liver disease and its down downstream consequences uh an increase in the risk of of liver cancer as well. So we have a direct effect on the liver of the glyphosate causing oxidative stress, DNA damage, uh changes in gene expression, also pushing things down a carcinogenic cancer causing pathway. You know, it was very strange. Every analysis we did on the liver with the different molecular biological markers that we we investigated led pointed us down a cancer pathway. It was really quite extraordinary in a way and uh but in other words, it was consistent. We got a very, very consistent pattern of molecular and cellular changes suggesting that the liver was being sent down a carcinogenic uh pathway. Uh and so and that was as I say through direct effects and indirect effects through say the gut dysbiosis and leaky gut.
Dr Rupy: Is is this herbicide recognized as carcinogenic by the IARC?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yes. Good good point. So this is what what blew the whole thing into you know, wide scale out into the public arena in terms of the cancer causing potential of glyphosate was a monograph published in 2015 by the World Health the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer. So because they they they classified glyphosate herbicides, glyphosate and glyphosate herbicides as probably as probable human carcinogens, grade 2A.
Dr Rupy: Gotcha.
Professor Michael Antoniou: And that was on the basis of definitive animal experiments, definitive mechanisms, oxidative stress, DNA damage. But not so conclusive evidence from human epidemiology.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: And that's why it was a 2A and not a one.
Dr Rupy: Right.
Professor Michael Antoniou: If if there was clear evidence of from human association studies as well, then they they said that it would it would have been a one.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: I my feeling is that since the IARC report of 2015, firstly, we've got many more animal studies showing the carcinogenicity potential and mechanisms, oxidative stress, DNA damage, inflammation and and uh uh we've also got and and other carcinogenic mechanisms. But also we've got much better epidemiological evidence as well, especially for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Where there's at least five well-powered, well-conducted epidemiological studies in the United States that show a clear association of glyphosate and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Dr Rupy: Huh.
Professor Michael Antoniou: My feeling and this has happened since the IARC appraisal, I reckon if IARC was to return to glyphosate now with this extra evidence in both animals and epidemiology and mechanisms and all the rest of it, it would come out as a class one without a doubt. The evidence is just so in other words, definitive human carcinogen.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Which means it should be banned. Because the point about carcinogens is that once you identify a chemical as as a cancer hazard, it doesn't matter what the dose is. The law says it has to be banned. And and and but that's not happening.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. I was going to say like like how how have industry responded to this? Because I'm sure they're watching this and they're thinking that back in their minds, look, we're going to have to reformulate, we're going to have to use different pesticides at some point. It's coming. It's bloody late if we we've been sat on this information for so many years now and work of yours and others. What are the next steps and and why haven't we been scaling this back if it hasn't started already?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yeah, it's um no, there hasn't been any scaling back. That's for sure. Um the use of glyphosate herbicides has been increasing rather than decreasing. Yes, there have been uh if you go to shops at least, you know, I'm not sure whether these are used in in agriculture, but certainly in terms of domestic uh use, glyphosate in the so-called the Roundup formulation, glyphosate has been replaced by a couple of other um chemicals. One is uh acetic acid, in other words, vinegar.
Dr Rupy: Okay, yeah, yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: It's interesting how you can spray your plants with vinegar and it will kill them. Yeah. Um, that's that's not bad at all. I mean that's probably the safest option. And then there's other ones with pelargonic acid, which is a a plant extract again. But, you know, it is nevertheless a toxin and it needs to be handled with care. So but that's very small scale. Um, the regular glyphosate herbicides there being there's no roll back on that and again, the the industry and the regulators are are are for me, they're playing the what we call the dose game. And they're saying, well, but the doses exposed, you know, the people are exposed to us this low and so on that, you know, we don't we don't think it's um of any, you know, any concern. But actually that for me, they're just not taking all of the evidence into account. They're really, really aren't. The the regulators tend to also, and this has been published, you know, especially, you know, um the way the Environmental Protection Agency evaluated glyphosate in the in the United States has been very, very heavily criticized uh as basically they really only took into account the work conducted by the industry. And they ignored what independent academics like myself have done.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: And based on what the industry has put to them, they said, oh, well we we think it's fine. That that is far from the case. Uh of course because you imagine you're an industry, you've produced this chemical. Are you going to present damning evidence to a regulator that's going to force the regulator to block the marketing of your product? They they the these these conflicts are simply not being embraced by regulators. And that's true here in UK and Europe as well, the way that I perceive it as well. The the commercial imperative is so strong, both not just in the industry, but also within with for governments, you know, they they want to make life as easy as possible for industry. Yeah. Uh so they they come up with reasons why, oh, it it's kind of safe. I was shocked, for example, the two years ago, glyphosate market approval, market glyphosate was reapproved for market use in Europe in 2023. 2022. 2023. And that was and it was for for 10 years. It was extended for another 10 years. And
Dr Rupy: And that's reapproval to be used in agriculture.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Agriculture. There were some restrictions.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Like for example, no no uh pre-harvest desiccation.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: restrictions there and some restrictions in in urban use as well.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: So some good things, but on the whole, not much really for for farmers, especially because as I say, pre-harvest desiccation is only one use of glyphosate herbicides in agriculture, not the only use. So, but what what what shocked me was that the agencies, the European Union agencies that um evaluated the scientific evidence for glyphosate safety, ignored all my all my group's work. I mean, again, I mean, I don't that may sound uh as if I'm uh something very personal, but which it is, but what shocked me was we conducted our experiments according to regulatory standards. Absolutely regulatory standards. And yet, and we got these adverse outcomes, including glyphosate alone causing DNA damage and the gut dysbiosis and so on, and yet it was completely ignored.
Dr Rupy: Did they give an explanation as to why?
Professor Michael Antoniou: I I never got a reply um from when I when I put this to them. And also the other way they get around this and this is the shocker. I mentioned earlier on how the commercial glyphosate form their formulations, it's not just glyphosate but many other chemicals that are are there to help glyphosate do its job as a as a weed killer. They completely ignore the the toxicity of the co-formulants as we call them, these additional chemicals in the commercial formulations. And we do so and they do so uh at their peril because we know that they're highly toxic in their own right. Whenever we've done an experiment where we've compared glyphosate alone to some commercial formulation, the commercial formulation has always come up as being more toxic than glyphosate. And that's important observation because when people are exposed, they're not just exposed to glyphosate, they're exposed to the commercial formulations as farmers use them or as you use them at home, etc. So, and but they ignore the work that has shown really serious health risks from the commercial formulations or heightened health risks from the commercial formulation compared to glyphosate alone. And that's the other way they kind of get around a lot of the science using the commercial formulations showing uh serious health risks uh of glyphosate herbicides. So there's so there's all these almost sleights of hand
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: that regulatory agencies use uh in other words to say, oh well this study didn't quite comply with our regulatory standards. Well actually they they set for me very unnecessary and scientifically unsound uh and scientifically unnecessary requirements for an academic to conduct a toxicity study, say with glyphosate and and see what the effects are. So a lot of the studies are ignored because some fine, you know, some little requirement uh is not not met and therefore they say, oh well even though there's evidence of harm, we'll ignore that as well. It's a very, for me, it's a very, very almost sinister because it's people's health that's on the line here.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: You know, you know, and that's their health as well. You know, what they didn't realize. It's their health as well. Yeah. Um, so they it's people's health and the environmental well-being generally that's at that is at risk here and you, you know, you shouldn't be putting money before life. You should be putting life before money. And if something if something comes up as a uh as a hazard for serious illness, then you you come down hard on it.
Dr Rupy: 100%. We should be taking a much more approach.
Professor Michael Antoniou: I'm glad to say that as we speak, the European agencies, um, uh, European Food Safety Authority, uh, is re-evaluating glyphosate in the light of the latest carcinogenicity cancer study I mentioned earlier that showed that even the so-called acceptable daily intake, the safe daily intake dose was causing serious multiple types of cancer. So we're waiting to see what their uh outcome is re-evaluating this. But that study if of all was 100% regulatory compliant. Absolutely no doubt. So it cannot be faulted in terms of procedure. And if you can't fault it in terms of procedure, then you've got to take that evidence, the the results at face value, which is this, you know, this these agent is carcinogenic full stop. And if the European Union is true to its own law, when a chemical is identified as a hazard, let alone a risk for cancer, that agent must be banned. Full stop.
Dr Rupy: Are there some positive cases within the European within European countries where councils have taken it upon themselves to ban the use of Roundup and glyphosate containing herbicides?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yes, there have been some encouraging uh steps taken like in France, France banned all urban use. Yeah. uh domestic use of glyphosate herbicides, for example. Um, and and I think, you know, cities, so-called local communities have taken that step as well. Here in the UK, there is um, I know Pesticide Action Network UK, Pesticide Action Network UK, a great NGO that I'm happy to be working with at the moment on the glyphosate issue. They they are campaigning with local groups to try to get local councils to again stop using glyphosate herbicides and use other other means of weed control along the streets because they exist. Let's face it.
Dr Rupy: Vinegar, right?
Professor Michael Antoniou: You can use vinegar for a start. Um, even if the weed grows up again, which it will do eventually, you know, you go back and you can spray it again. I mean, it's a damn sight cheaper by the way.
Dr Rupy: Oh yeah, I can imagine. Yeah. Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: And so there are many different ways that you can control weeds without having to resort to to Roundup, you know, to glyphosate. Yeah. So there are encouraging signs. Uh other other councils are digging their heels in, you know, got we've got local campaigners that have been lobbying, you know, not lobbying but yeah, pushing local councils to ban it, but they're there's push back from them and say, no, we're not going to do it. So it's very it's kind of hit and miss and here and as to whether the local councils listen and take note of the evidence, the scientific evidence and and act accordingly.
Dr Rupy: Because I mean, if you can inhale it, if you can absorb it through your skin, if you're eating it, I'm assuming it's in in some cases in tap water, drinking water as well.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Again, we we're not 100% we we need to do a survey. I again, uh PAN UK, we're in the middle of a survey to find out um about uh what the water level contamination is. Um, because according according to European Union law, which again at the moment is the same in the UK, uh, the levels of pesticide contamination in drinking water are very low.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Um, and uh, but if there is some, it can still be harmful if you're ingesting it on a daily basis. In the in the rat study I mentioned earlier with the ultra low dose of glyphosate herbicide, the level of glyphosate in the drinking water of these rats was the what is accepted, what is permitted, the maximum permitted in drinking water in Europe and the UK.
Dr Rupy: And they're the ones that suffered.
Professor Michael Antoniou: But they're the ones that suffered the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and kidney damage as well.
Dr Rupy: Wow. Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: So, you know, so we do need to know what's there. Yeah. because and um, so we'll see what that is. And I know also that PAN UK is also surveying um just the environment generally uh for glyphosate and we'll see what the results are from there. And uh but yeah, yeah, these these are these are things that should concern us as uh the general public and that we should be taking steps to protect ourselves and our loved ones in the meantime.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. We should be definitely campaigning for our local councils. I'm I'm literally in my mind formulating a letter that I'm going to be giving to my council about the use of Roundup and whether they use it or not. And I would encourage everyone to think about that as well after a cheaper means that are safer for I'm just thinking about my dog as well. Um, you know, there's there's probably a bunch of people freaking out now about everything that you've said over the last hour. What can we actually feasibly do apart from obviously writing letters to our councils and lobbying and you know, supporting groups like um Pesticide Action Network. What are things that we can do in our day-to-day to reduce our exposure to pesticides in general, but obviously the number one pesticide glyphosate.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yeah. Um, what we can do there uh is to protect ourselves and our loved ones, um, is first and foremost to buy as much organic food as we can afford. I know organic food is more expensive, um, but as much as you can afford, buy organic. And I would say if your budget is limited in that respect, the things to try to buy organic are the cereals, the bread, the cereals, oat products.
Dr Rupy: I was going to say, yeah, is there a list?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Because these are key key ones where the highest residues are likely.
Dr Rupy: And it's because these are so so these are like the the the big contributors in our diet and they're usually like huge monocultures that are like sprayed at industrial levels. So the wheat, the cereals, the corn and the soy, those kind of products.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Gotcha. Yeah, so those um and generally the where the highest pesticide residue levels are found are in green leafy vegetables and soft fruits.
Dr Rupy: Oh, strawberries, raspberries.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Nice things unfortunately. Um, so we so we tend to buy just organic soft fruits um and and the the leafy vegetables. Um, and and like and then the the cereals definitely products made out of oats and wheat and rye and barley and even as I say some pulses if you're buying pulses, beans and lentils.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: as well. Um, try to buy organic if you can of those too.
Dr Rupy: And so skeptics of organic, right? Um, will say, ah, well, if you buy organic, it's still going to have pesticide residues on. Is it meaningfully lower in terms of pesticide? I'm sure organic food is still going to have pesticide.
Professor Michael Antoniou: There will be because organic farms are surrounded by non-organic farms. Spray drift and so on. And it's true. The the levels there will be residue levels of pesticides, not all, but in some organic products, but they are a tiny fraction of what you find. Generally, there are a really are a small fraction of what you find in the non-organic. So it can make a difference.
Dr Rupy: Okay. Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: for sure.
Dr Rupy: Okay. So or uh go for the, you know, bread, cereals, try and go organic where possible.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yeah.
Dr Rupy: There are cheaper organic options now that I've seen in the supermarkets, particularly frozen organic. Yeah, which I'm a big fan of like frozen berries and that kind of stuff.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yeah. And then do you do you follow the advice that PAN give, you know, they do like a a list of like uh foods that are the most pesticide which have the most pesticide residues versus ones that have the least. Do you sort of follow those guidelines every year or?
Professor Michael Antoniou: That's right, which is why I mentioned, you know, the the uh the green leafies and the soft fruits are the ones where you generally tend to find the highest pesticide residues. Um and including glyphosate occasionally as well in these foods too. Um and um so yeah, it's worth following the pesticide action network guidelines on uh based on their surveys and which which to try to favour as as far as your budget allows for organic. Yeah. and so on. Um so yeah, it it is uh there are things we can do and obviously don't if you've got a garden, don't buy spray it in you know, dig up your weeds rather than spray your weeds or spray them with vinegar instead. It's a lot cheaper and it works.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Um What about if you live near a golf course or something?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, because those are really bad, I think.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Um, I don't know, you know. But yeah, they're in places like that, that's where you see a lot of, you know, herbicide uses to keep the greens green and Yeah. It may not be can't use glyphosate because it will kill the grass.
Dr Rupy: Right, yeah, yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: But it'll be used on the sides, but they'll be using other herbicides, the broad leaf herbicides to keep just keep the fairways and the and the greens just with grass and not other and other weeds. So, but yeah, it's um it could be uh uh you you could end up with a with an environment with high levels of of pesticides if you're around places like golf courses, but even with farms during the spray seasons. Again, we um I was um I have a colleague in the United States who looked at in this they focused on glyphosate residues uh in women that either live near agricultural fields that was spraying with Roundup glyphosate and those that weren't. And also they looked at different times of the year and sure enough, if you live close to an agricultural field, your glyphosate levels in your urine were higher, but also they varied through the year. So if it if the urine sample was taken near the spray, you know, the spray season, then again your urinary levels were higher than at other times of the year too. So if you're living near agricultural fields and you're concerned, maybe you need to find out when your local farmer is going to be spraying and kind of on those days kind of be away.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: And and reduce your level of exposure because it just spreads. I mean, you can't contain it. The winds especially if the wind is blowing in your direction.
Dr Rupy: Totally, yeah, yeah. And you mentioned earlier the way we measure um glyphosate is via the urine. Is this the the the the way in which our body excretes it? Is it just via the urine or?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Uh no, it's um we we measure glyphosate in urine because it's the easiest.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: way. And it's a good measure because anything that's gone into the body comes out mostly in the urine. But anything that doesn't go into the body first comes out in the faeces. Uh uh and um and we don't absorb everything, you know, we're only going to be absorbing a percentage of the glyphosate in our food. Which means that most of the glyphosate is going to be impacting the gut because it's in the food that we've eaten. Which is why we are seeing these quite dramatic effects in in gut microbiome, gut function, structure, you know, leaky gut. I think it's not perhaps not surprising we're seeing these associations, strong associations with glyphosate exposure in the gut. Yeah. But so I I can't let me think what's the I mean we do I sorry, I can't off the top of my head recall what percentage of the of the uh glyphosate in say the drinking water exposed to the animals uh ends up being taken up, but it's a significant percentage. It's not like two or 3%. It's much much, much higher than that.
Dr Rupy: Wow.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Which is why you end up with these uh these relatively readily detectable levels in the urine of, you know, can be up to three, three, four micrograms per per litre, which uh is not insignificant.
Dr Rupy: No, absolutely. Because that that's telling you that you've absorbed quite a lot.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yeah. and then uh in order to get that amount in your urine.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. Um if people are interested in figuring out how or to what level they're being exposed right now with glyphosate, are there commercially available urine tests that they can do online?
Professor Michael Antoniou: There are. Uh I'm not sure if there's any in Europe, but certainly in the United States where you can send a urine sample and they will analyse it for you. Um so if you search the internet, you may be able to find um uh a service provider.
Dr Rupy: Because it could be quite interesting if someone wants to do like a an experiment, like I'm thinking about this experiment myself, like to to test my urine levels um pre and post doing an experiment where I go purely organic and just seeing whether the residues are actually uh markedly reduced in my urine. Um that would be an interesting one.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Very interesting experiment um and uh certainly very doable. Yeah. There have been um short-term studies along those lines in the past, not looking specifically at glyphosate, but just a range of different pesticides. And and um so people had their pesticide urine urine pesticide residues measured and then they went on an organic diet for a couple of weeks and then measured again and sure enough we saw quite a dramatic reduction even over a relatively short period of time. And this is very encouraging.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: It means the body given the chance, we could actually detox uh fairly rapidly. Uh where it would take a bit longer because a lot of these pesticides, not so much the glyphosate, but many other pesticides are dissolved in fat, the the fatty parts of the body more readily and so we end up with deposits in the the adipose, the fatty parts of the body. And that will take a bit longer to kind of clear out.
Dr Rupy: Because my understanding of glyphosate was that it's it's water soluble and it will it will just, you know, clear it.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yeah. We it is, it is, it's quite it's cleared quite quickly from the animal studies. Again, there haven't been any human studies, but in animal studies that were given like a relatively high dose of glyphosate and then measured over time that most of it will be gone within a week.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Um, but some does still hang around and it does tends to concentrate in our bones.
Dr Rupy: Ah, gosh.
Professor Michael Antoniou: And again, where it could induce a an issues with with bone function including bone marrow. It's been hypothesized that bone bone integrity and also the the bone marrow, which is responsible for our producing all of our blood cells.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Um, uh could also be negatively impacted by having this more persistent levels of glyphosate in that part of the body.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Uh, so, yeah, you know, it'd be worth doing the experiment.
Dr Rupy: Totally, for sure.
Professor Michael Antoniou: So, but yeah, I'm sure that it it can be can be done even if you have to post your
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: I mean, Pesticide Action Network UK, um, let's see, they they were sending samples to a company in Belgium for analysis.
Dr Rupy: Oh, okay. Okay. So it is possible to do it somewhere in Europe.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yeah. You can probably end up doing it in Europe. Uh, yeah, we don't have to ship to the USA.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. I'm going to ask them about that. I'm really interested in that. That's that's uh, yeah, that's definitely an experiment um that I want to do.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yeah, we need more surveys like this of the UK population. I say and and food, you know, foods on the shelves.
Dr Rupy: Totally, yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: And um and as well as in with people.
Dr Rupy: I I noticed when I was in America earlier this year during the summer, there's loads of these glyphosate free labels that are popping up. I haven't seen that in the UK.
Professor Michael Antoniou: No, that's not a thing in here.
Dr Rupy: It's not as much of a buzzword yet.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Exactly.
Dr Rupy: We're trying to make it a buzzword. Um but are those to be trusted? Like do they actually do independent analyses of like the products and they.
Professor Michael Antoniou: As far as I'm aware, I I am aware of at least one um NGO that's uh certifies products.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: So they they have a a certified laboratory that does the analysis of the product and says yay or nay as to whether you can have the glyphosate free symbol on your product or not. So yes, it can be trusted.
Dr Rupy: Uh-huh. Okay. But I'm assuming it's of a certain level or under.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Presumably, it's the level of detection.
Dr Rupy: Gotcha.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Uh and that can vary from product to product. But if um uh but it should be quite low.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: If the company has its assay working well, um it should be able to pick up very low levels of glyphosate accurately and sensitively.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Um so yeah, I would say that uh it's fairly it may not be 100%, but it will be at an extremely low level if it passes the the tests.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, definitely. Um, Michael, this has been amazing. Uh I've learned so much on this. Uh I I'm feeling pretty smug about my Riverford organic box now, so. I'm definitely investing in that. I I I recently started with them. They're not sponsoring the podcast or anything. Um but I I just love the the freshness of it, the seasonal variety, all that kind of stuff.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Absolutely. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: And I think there are lots of other ways in which people can try and sneak in more organic vegetables and fruits into their diet by by by first focusing on the wheat and cereals and corn and and soy based products, I think. It's really pragmatic.
Professor Michael Antoniou: I think absolutely right and um and uh yeah, I mean, I also recommend um going organic doesn't have to be super expensive. I'm very uh I admire the work of a of an NGO in the United States called Moms Across America.
Dr Rupy: Moms Across America?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Moms Across America.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: If you go to their website, they give you all kinds of advice
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: on cooking organically.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Professor Michael Antoniou: Affordably.
Dr Rupy: Really? Oh wow. Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Buying and cooking organically affordably. Moms Across America. It's run it was founded by an amazing woman called um Zen Honeycutt.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Professor Michael Antoniou: who's an old acquaintance and friend. And uh she's done amazing things.
Dr Rupy: Uh-huh.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Uh mainly driven by problems she found in her own family with her own children. Um uh really illnesses, food intolerances, really serious chronic illnesses. And she moved them all to organic and they all got better.
Dr Rupy: Gosh.
Professor Michael Antoniou: So then inspired by her own experience, she set up this organization which has a big membership now.
Dr Rupy: Uh-huh.
Professor Michael Antoniou: and which is still very active and they've been campaigning for getting rid of getting rid of glyphosate and pesticides and genetically modified foods for many, many years. But they're also helping people on how to go organic because they know the solution is to go organic and because GMOs and pesticides, GM foods and pesticides are not allowed in um in organic agriculture. So they they they advise people on how to affordably uh go down that route. And so people can, you know, get advice on that. Uh, so yeah, it is possible.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: to to shift things. And I think one of the things that people don't realize that if you cook from scratch rather than buy processed foods, they're really expensive.
Dr Rupy: They are, yeah, yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Um, and we know that ultra, you know, the the health health risk connections with ultra processed foods are now becoming very quite well established. And the solution to that is is to cook from scratch from fresh ingredients, which is no doubt what you recommend.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Um, it's great first of all, uh and and if you start from that basis actually and you buy organic, it's again, it's cheaper than buying organic processed foods, you know, do that anyway. Yeah. So, um, it is possible to go down these change the the way we cook, buy and cook our foods uh in a very positive way and for it to be organic and and more affordable. It may not be 100%, but at least you can get get a large percentage of it organic and um and save that exposure to the to these toxic chemicals because let's face it, pesticides are designed to kill. In other words, they are toxic, they are poisons. So we should avoid them as much as possible.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, absolutely. Um, I feel like I'm going to open a can of worms here, but I think we're going to save this for another podcast. You mentioned genetically modified foods there. I'm sure you've got a lot of opinions on this.
Professor Michael Antoniou: Yeah, again.
Dr Rupy: And a hot take, you know, avoiding it, uh are they neutral? Is it because of the stacking of pesticides? Like what is the issue with genetically modified foods?
Professor Michael Antoniou: The problem with genetically modified foods is multiple. Again, we need another hour for me to take you through all of that. It's an issue that I've been uh raising concerns about in public since the mid 1990s. Um and it's still a major issue. Increasingly so actually with the imminent launch of what are known as these new gene edited genetically modified crops, um which may sound better and safer, but actually they're not. Um uh so yeah, it's the the risks are multiple. Um and uh and we need to bear in mind that all of these types of crops, whether it's the old style what we call transgenic GM crops with the addition of foreign genes or these newer style gene edited crops where you're just tweaking the the plant's own gene genes, a few at most. Um they're all going to be grown with pesticides. Yeah. Uh so they they they come as a package. GM foods regardless of what they are, they come as a package with pesticides. And in fact, like for the launch of the glyphosate tolerant genetically modified crops, it meant the exposure to glyphosate just went through the ceiling. I mean literally. And that's and industry knew that residue levels and exposure levels would be increased with the launch of these crops. So they lobbied incredibly strongly to have the permitted levels, not on the basis of any science, but they lobbied incredibly strongly to have the permitted residue levels in foods increased and the acceptable daily intakes to be increased and so on. So, um it's uh so it comes as I say, you know, this is what they we're faced with with these with these genetically modified crops. It's still complex mixtures of pesticides and mixtures of pesticides by the way are even more dangerous of course than just one pesticide alone. Again, I haven't had time to go into it, but I've my group has conducted a number of studies along those lines as well where we mix pesticides and feed it to our laboratory animals and show that they they suffer consequences. Again, we give them the acceptable daily intake of the mixture, which regulators say, oh, nothing should happen. Well, I'm sorry, something bad things do happen to the gut microbiome, to the liver again. Gosh. So, so they minimally come with still a big package of pesticide use, but they come also with additional uh mechanisms of risk. When you start playing with an organism's genes, genetic makeup, it's not a good thing. Not a good thing at all. You cannot predict the outcomes at all because genes work as a sophisticated integrated network in you or me, plants, animals, it doesn't matter what the organism. The genome, our totality of our genes is an incredibly sophisticated integrated network of function. It means that if you just change one component of a network, there are going to be major repercussions. Yeah. And if you change the patterns of gene expression, you change the biochemistry of the organism. Yeah. And contained within that biochemistry of the organism could be the production of novel toxins and allergens. Yeah. So in a nutshell, that is some of the risks that I've been trying to not just myself but many uh have been trying to highlight uh from the from these genetically modified foods, which admittedly here in Europe are very, very, very limited. Um but as I say, we're on the verge of a new wave of these types of products entering the market in the coming years. Yeah. So we do need to be aware and aware of it all of what's coming.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. Yeah, we definitely need to prepare for that. Um Professor Antoniou, thank you so much. I'm going to get you to promise that you're going to come back so we can talk more about genetically modified crops and their potential ramifications.
Professor Michael Antoniou: I will be delighted and I very much look forward to it.
Dr Rupy: That's going to be brilliant. I can't wait.
