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Happy Spurling - Regular Font
Kayla Lanier - Bold Font
Today we are talking about hormone health. Why are women having so many hormone issues? We are gonna be focusing on glyphosate, which is a major endocrine disruptor.
So what is glyphosate? Glyphosate is a large-spectrum herbicide that was introduced in 1974. Actually, 1.8 million tons of glyphosate is used in the US every single year. It's not even regulated. It is found in 75% of our rainwater. So when they spray this stuff, they're spraying it everywhere and anywhere that they can.
And you know, you mentioned that it's found in 90% of our food products that are tested by the US government. 90%. I just had to let that sink in when I was doing the research 'cause I thought, oh my goodness, it's in everything, including honey. So biologists have been really sounding the alarm for decades now, trying to say that there's serious declines in insect populations that affect the species diversity, and it's really connected to the declining bee populations.
When you think about the far-reaching effects of glyphosate, it's really disturbing. Honestly, completely unregulated like you said. I mean, you can go to your ACE Hardware or tractor supply or any kind of home store and just pick up a container of glyphosate, which is Roundup. So a lot of people are thinking this, what is glyphosate?
But it's actually Roundup, that's the main herbicide in it, and we've been told that it's completely safe, that it actually is broken down when water is applied to it, so in rain. And apparently, that's not true because now they're testing our rainwater and finding that 75% of what's sampled has glyphosate in a quantitative amount.
I think there's more to the story that it actually can't be broken down like that, which leads us to a lot of other issues if we're unable to break it down in the human body, like they once told us that we can. And actually that's still the conversation among the FDA is that it's considered relatively safe and so it's in a lot of our foods have a list that are in a category called GRAS. GRAS is the abbreviation for generally recognized as safe. And there's a whole lot left to be desired in that category. That's where they put artificial colors and artificial flavors and preservatives that they put in our food.
And then they also have this whole list of herbicides and pesticides that they say, well, pretty much these are safe as far as we know.
Right, like you won't die today.
Exactly.
Maybe in 20 years.
Yeah. And I actually saw a disturbing interview on YouTube a long time ago, where a news anchor drank a glass of what was supposed to be glyphosate because it's clear, so Roundup.
And he was saying, see, it's completely safe. And he drank it and was like, I'm fine. And I'm like, you can't honestly think that it works like that. And that's, I think, kind of the problem is this idea that, well, it didn't kill me. Well, there's different ways of dying than just immediately too.
Right.
And one is, slowly as everything is chelated out, just like what happens to the plants that they spray. Not even the plants die immediately when Roundup is applied.
Right. I think you said like 10 days.
Yeah. Some of 'em, depending on the, if it's shrubby or not, but depending on the actual, Plant itself, it will have a seven to 10 day window. And it's very sad and interesting that the way that Roundup works or glyphosate in itself, 'cause that's really the compound we're talking about, that's in Roundup.
It actually chelates minerals from a plant. And so, It disrupts the ability of that plant to basically communicate with the soil around it as a healthy plant. So it breaks down the fungi and the bacterium that are present in that plant that are healthy and good, and that actually makes it susceptible to bacterium and fungi in the soil that are harmful.
Basically, it overpowers the plant and a lot of that weakens its immune system as a species, so you get death of the plant. But we're much larger than plants. And so when you look at glyphosate in the PubMed studies, the research is being done in animal studies, so in mice, they're finding very similar findings in that.
So glyphosate was thought to be safe to use because. The Shema pathway was only found in plants, fungi, and bacterium. And that's what we were told is that we can use this and we can use it as much as we want because this is only gonna affect plants.
But we know the world doesn't work like that. You can't, you can't isolate one thing and nothing operates in a vacuum, so you're actually gonna affect a whole soil biome, which affects the quality of the plants that are grown. But we have beneficial fungi and bacteria and microbes in our gut brow.
So when you disrupt that on a plant, you're doing it in a, of course, a smaller surface area, so it's more immediate. But when you do the same thing, it actually happens in the human body. It's just a slower process. And when those harmful bacteria in fungi are allowed to proliferate in the gut, then your other good bacteria gets displaced.
And so then you have the rise of conditions like candida overgrowth and leaky gut syndrome and sibo because you don't have what you need in there for healthy population. It's really a problem that I think they're gonna have to eventually admit to. And there are thousands upon thousands of lawsuits that's been paid out through Monsanto based on glyphosate findings because they know that it's linked to cancer, but there's so much money behind it that it's really hard for it to gain any momentum like in the press. Because if you go on and just Google it, most of the time you find out just good things about glyphosate, how much it helps farmers, and how it made, you know, things so much easier because they're not having to work the land as much.
But that's because all the plants around it are dying. So basically the soil becomes sterile, which forces them into a place where they have to use not only an herbicide, but now fungicides to go with it because the beneficial fungi are no longer present, and so they're not available. It's creating a whole cycle.
So the whole ecosystem is basically being like destroyed.
Yeah, and it's really gone on for so many years. They've actually, they're increasing applications of glyphosate based herbicides a hundred fold since 1974 to 2014. That's unbelievable in how much is being sprayed. And it's in so much of our food supply that the studies are done on minute amounts in the human body, but we're not encountering minute amounts.
We're encountering it in plant-based diets in protein sources and our meat and now in our water supply. So it's kind of grim and I don't wanna sound like it is, but it's something that needs to be addressed because how many times are we trying to source really good food only to find that it's actually been tainted before it ever got to us with something that can totally break down your microbiome and make the food that you're eating, not absorbable, which gives you the link to a lot of deficiencies. It's actually theoried and there's a lot of studies even in PubMed that are widely becoming more widely studied, and that's just that the microbiome of mice are so disrupted that it causes gut dysbiosis in mice, and that also leads to disruption of the immune system because that is, our immune system is based mainly in the gut. So when you affect that, you affect the whole system.
So as far as epigenetics and mice, does that affect humans as well? Like you said earlier that glyphosate can be found in breast milk.
Oh, yeah. Absolutely, and I think that's one of the saddest things, is they're actually finding that genetically the offspring of mice are actually having the same disruption in their gut biome as those who had initially been tested with it.
So it's being passed on in the genome. They actually find it in the umbilical cords of infants, so we know it's being picked up. And it's really heartbreaking because how many children are struggling with autism or behavioral disorders, because if you don't have clear detox pathways, then anything you encounter like this doesn't leave the system and that leaves us susceptible to weakened immune systems and also a lot of behavioral disorders because you can't disturb the gut on that level and it not affect your brain.
Right.
But the links to hormone disruption, so talking about it in relation to, uh, women in our cycles is the studies in the mice models are really fascinating in that they're finding it altered and disrupted their ability to uptake estrogens and to modulate the estrogen receptors.
The molecules involved in estrogenic pathways were shown to cause effects on female reproductive tracts and alter the development and differentiation of ovarian follicles and the uterus. So we had this rise in not only people going through menopause earlier, but having a much more difficult time than, say our grandparents did, and we've often thought, well, why is it different? My great-grandparents went through this time in their life. And I don't remember it being as difficult or talked about as much, and I think there's a couple reasons why, but that people just talk about things more now. But I honestly think that our ancestors weren't faced with this onslaught.
I mean, it's a fairly new problem and it's really sad because PCOS and you know, just hormone dysregulation in general where people are estrogen dominant. That's what they were finding in the animal studies, is that it disrupted estrogen, which is why it has a strong link to breast cancer and hormone receptive cancers, because when you disrupt estrogen, you're not gonna just disrupt estrogen. It's gonna be the entire profile of your hormones, and that leads to a whole host of issues for women. There's actually a list by the US government that is an endocrine disruptor. It's a characteristic list and there's 10 things listed that basically classify something as an endocrine disruptor.
Glyphosate meets eight of those characteristics.
Oh, wow. So it looks like it alters hormone distribution and it induces alterations in hormone metabolism. It alters the fate of hormone metabolism and it alters hormone receptor expression.
Yeah. And it's really, I mean, all of those things basically translated means it's affecting how our body receives hormones into the cell and then also alters their interaction when they get in the cell.
So it causes a signal that's disrupted, which gives us a hormone profile that's very much the same.
I just have to say that this is kind of overwhelming.
Yeah, and I think we could kind of look at it like, what are we gonna do live in a bubble, you know? Is it, is it something that we can do? But the good news is at the end, we're gonna talk about a few things that you can do.
I mean, there's so much that we have to worry about when it comes to taking care of our health. And this is just another thing that we don't know where it's at. We can't see it. It could be anywhere. It's in our water. It's in our food, it's in our children.
Not funny, but how else do you look at it?
It's like, oh goodness, it's scary.
And you actually can test for levels of glyphosate now. So we have a test at the office we do that's a toxin panel that actually tests just for glyphosate. It's not an expensive test, and it actually shows if you have higher than the quantitative amount of glyphosate.
And it can really tell you a lot about your detox pathways because some people that have chronic issues or maybe a cancer diagnosis, I usually suggest the glyphosate panel just because it tells us a lot as to whether is this actually a link to something going on with you, or do you have a body that's actually able to detox this to a healthy level so that you're not having residual effects?
So it is good to kind of know if you've had exposure. They used to reserve the test for people who live near farming communities. And now it's pretty much so widely used in the home gardens all the way to powerline right of ways that everyone's exposed, there's no question about that. But the gene mutation that we talked about on our other episode.
I was fixing to say.
Yeah, it's really linked to this because that detoxification pathway with MTHFR is inhibited, and that's a chemical pathway. So when you're faced with herbicides and things like that, if you have complete detox ability and you don't have an inhibition, you're probably not gonna retain as much of this. But keep in mind that it does store in the bone and tissue of mammals.
I mean, you're not immune even if you don't have the gene mutation. So you should definitely look into at least getting it tested if you feel like you eat a lot of processed foods or you're around a lot of things that might contain a lot of glyphosate or just in general, just for an overall checkup, just to be aware.
Yeah, and there's actually, uh, several links online that you can find the 70 most widely sprayed crops in the US that are conventionally grown. And it kind of gives you an idea of which ones to look out for. And this is important because they're doing something now called desiccating the fields, and it's where they're using Roundup in a really concentrated amount right before harvest in areas where it's wet or you've had a really wet year and they need to dry the grain out. They'll actually spray this so heavily that the farmers aren't allowed to be in the field afterwards for a certain amount of time.
Wow.
And then what do you think they do? It dries the grain out because it's killing the plant, so it does a great job so that they don't have to wait for the crop to dry out, especially in a wet season where they might lose it.
So it's become extremely accepted to use that, and so places like wet areas for where crops are grown, the upper Midwest or North Dakota, you're gonna have more of that going on because of the wet years that they have. And it's really sad because I honestly think that the gluten intolerance that we have experienced in the last several years is actually probably linked greatly to the glyphosate intolerance, not so much the gluten because the grains are most heavily sprayed.
So you're eating a plant-based diet, trying to take care of yourself, and the plants that are being sprayed are actually containing high levels. And then it is also in meat choices. Anytime an animal is fed a genetically modified crop, such as corn, soy, or wheat, they're actually storing glyphosate just like you and I would.
And then it's in the bone and tissue. So we eat the meat of that animal and it creates a cycle where we're getting glyphosate in every area. I think it needs to be addressed because of the hormone alterations and that maybe it is actually connected to the problems we're having with so much hormone dysregulation.
Right.
And not only in women, but in men and children as well.
I believe so. Are there any supplements or anything that you can use to help detox glyphosate out of your body? Faster.
There's a couple, and that's kind of what's sobering about it is because it's a manmade chemical, our bodies really weren't designed to have to break it down, and so the only studies that have actually been intently done were done through veterinarian health because a lot of the breeds of cattle that are very high end as far as very expensive cattle breeds actually were facing sterility, and they couldn't, they weren't breeding.
And they actually had to come together because it was somewhat of a crisis because of money was involved. So veterinarians actually did testing and found that these cattle had high levels of glyphosate and they knew it was coming from the feed. And it was kind of when they transitioned into feeding so much genetically modified crops to them.
So they actually found that the two compounds were sauerkraut juice and a binder that is basically bentonite and Tetrahedrite clay and charcoal. And the binders can be used to pull it out of tissue and you excrete it in the urine and then sauerkraut juice is actually able to dismantle the structure, which is amazing.
That's kind of interesting. I wonder if that has anything to do with like gut health in general.
Yeah. And I wonder like that's an awesome point. Like the microbes that are being fed through fermented food may actually be what is missing to break those down. So if you can bring it in, I think it may be it is in attack mode, and then with a binder you can flush it out.
The only other thing is a sauna.
Swearing.
Yeah. If you sweat, uh, you can actually remove glyphosate in the tissue through sweating, and that actually releases the burden on the kidney and the liver from having to detox so much. So whenever you're detoxing or getting something out of the system, you wanna make sure that you're supporting the liver.
So usually milk thistle is a really good supplement to bring in if you're in the middle of. Just trying to do some cleanup in your system and you want a good detox if you use a binder with implementing some sauerkraut juice, but you can use the binder alone as well. It's probably not as effective, but it's still very effective for heavy metals and also for this.
So you would like drink charcoal?
It's actually, yeah. It can either drink or there are capsules, but we do a powder. Okay. Our story for cancer showed that he had extremely high levels of glyphosate. He had 75% higher than a commercial farmer, and so he definitely had the detox issue. And of course that was related to MTHFR, but we've had to kind of go ahead on with this because it was personal to get this cleaned out, and it's been difficult to do, but it is going down. What's hard is our exposure is happening daily and then you're doing something to try to take it out. So you're two steps forward, one step back all the time, but limiting the foods that you have to organic only is a very big takeaway from this.
They are not allowed to spray Roundup or this herbicide on an organic crop. Now you have to trust your farmer, and you're hoping that it's a certified organic farm because they do have to adhere to a higher regulation. But if it's just a, even a non-GMO crop can be desiccated at the end, like I talked about.
So GMO crops are what Roundup was designed for, and so you wanna stay away from those anyway because molecularly, we don't respond to them? Well, organic crops you have to be careful of making sure that they are truly certified organic, but just the fact that they can use some other pesticides and stuff, typically they're using an organically sourced ones.
You wanna just make sure you're eating organic as much as you can and trying to limit all the sources that it comes in. We use a Burke water filter, which is a great, like just tabletop filter that filters through charcoal and porcelain, and you're actually able to remove glyphosate in your water source.
And I know a lot of people have well water. We live in a rural area...
I mean, I do.
Yeah. And you have Artesian Springs, and so you're getting groundwater that way. And if you live near a power line right away or something where they're spraying and that's can run down, you really wanna have a water filter that can actually filter glyphosate and they have to be pretty specific.
But I'll put a link in the show notes for the burkee. We've had ours for years, it's very economical and no fancy gadgets, just a gravity fed system and, and a stainless container. So it works really good. And so basically it comes down to how can we limit our exposure? And then if you feel like that's something that might be connected, it's often connected to Parkinson's Disease and to MS and to Alzheimer's, and we're finding it connected to anxiety and depression because of the gut disruption that's there.
So we can't go hide in a bubble somewhere.
No, I mean, as much as we'd like to, but I mean, I feel like what you've shared today is gonna help a lot of people as far as how to navigate this crazy, crazy glyphosate issue and everything else that comes with it.
Yeah, and do, do some research on your own.
If you, you know, just kind of link it to, is glyphosate connected to, and you fill in the blank, you'll probably be pretty amazed at all the different health issues that are coming up that this is definitely being linked to. But again, you do the best that you can do, and there are some things such as getting a test kit if you think you've had exposure, or if you're dealing with an autoimmune issue and you can't quite get the answers that you need and you need to go deeper to find out what's going on. This is a good place to start too. So I'll link just everything in the show notes for a couple of these links and also anything that anyone might wanna know, they can of course, study on your own, and I encourage you to do that because the more aware we are of it.
The more of a voice we can have about it, because I think that's what it comes down to is it's going to take us being our own advocate and saying, we're not gonna buy this stuff anymore. And you actually start a food revolution, which is something that needs to be done in this area.
Right, right. And just stay aware, but don't fear.
Yeah. That's really good advice too. And I think when we were going through our story, I kind of became a little food paranoid.
Yeah. I mean it's hard. You get really scared when you start to read the labels.
Yeah, and just knowing that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and the body is amazing. I look at all these studies and think, wow, it's so awesome that you keep us alive, Lord, because that's really what's going on.
Yeah. Formed us so marvelously, we can filter through pretty much anything.
Oh yeah. And one more thing is that it's actually connected to HPA Axis dysfunction, and that's having a direct impact on how the hypothalamus communicates with the pituitary gland. And so it's a feedback loop that actually helps certain hormones not go into the wrong place, and it actually keeps that disruption from happening. And glyphosate, according to PubMed, studies disrupts the hormonal signaling pathways for the HPA axis and HPA axis dysfunction is so connected to depression and anxiety.
So I don't think we're gonna be able to escape that. There's something to all of this glyphosate stuff, and we just need to do the best we can and try to protect our food sources, grow it ourselves, if that's possible, but if not, source it organically.
Just a thought to close with, a comment made by Dawn Huber, who's actually an 87 year old glyphosate researcher.
He's a plant pathologist and he has literally spent decades studying glyphosate and how it affects the human body. The comment he made was, "The generation that comes after us. Will not marvel at our agricultural accomplishments, but rather wonder why we were so willing to sacrifice our children for them."
Just some food for thought. What we do matters.
SHOW NOTES:
Berkey Water Filter: https://amzn.to/44vg1CL
High Glyphosate Food List: https://www.healthyandnaturalworld.com/glyphosate-in-food-complete-list/
Mosaic Labs Glyphosate Test: https://mosaicdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/GPL_Test_Glyphosate_1-page.pdf
(If you would like to order a test, you can contact our office by calling (828) 738-1060)
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