glyphosate and sunburns
Melanoma rates have increased in step with the increased use of sunscreen. Though causality has not been proven, there is a strong correlation between sunscreen use and melanoma, which doesn’t make sense since sunscreen is supposed to protect you from the harmful sun’s rays. The connection is thought to start with glyphosate, the herbicide in Roundup, disrupts the skin’s natural ability to protect itself from the sun. Gut microbes normally produce tryptophan and tyrosine, amino acids that serve as precursors of melanin, the dark compound in tan or dark-skinned types. They are meant to soak up UV light and protect you from any damage it might cause. But when your food is exposed to glyphosate, it affects your gut microbes and they cannot produce enough of these amino acids. Your natural mechanisms for sun protection stop functioning. This contributes to dangerous sunburns and/or melanoma—not because of exposure to the sun itself but because of exposure to chemicals that kill off the bacteria you need to protect yourself from the sun. You also need plenty of polyphenols (compounds from brightly colored plants) in your diet for your skin to manufacture melanin because melanin is made out of cross-linked polyphenols.
glyphosate
In May 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” based on animal studies showing that glyphosate caused tumor growth and higher incidents of cancer. The WHO investigation also found that glyphosate is probably genotoxic (meaning it causes mutations in DNA) and increases oxidative stress, which triggers inflammation and speeds up aging. Glyphosate also mimics estrogen, which might explain why it causes human breast cancer cells to grow in vitro.5 Roundup itself is directly toxic to mitochondria6 and even more toxic to human placental cells than glyphosate7 alone. Even more worrisome, the gly- in glyphosate stands for glycine, an amino acid prevalent in collagen, the protein in your skin’s connective tissue. Glyphosate is actually a glycine molecule attached to a methylphosphonyl group (which happens to be a precursor to chemical weapons). This means that when you consume glyphosate it can be incorporated into your collagen matrix just like glycine. In 2017, the Boston University School of Public Health released research showing that glyphosate substituting for glycine disrupts multiple proteins necessary for kidney health and may contribute to kidney disease.8
5.Siriporn Thongprakaisang et al., “Glyphosate Induces Human Breast Cancer Cells Growth via Estrogen Receptors,” Food and Chemical Toxicology 59 (September 2013): 129–36, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2013.05.057.
6.Francisco Peixoto, “Comparative Effects of the Roundup and Glyphosate on Mitochondrial Oxidative Phosphorylation,” Chemosphere 61, no. 8 (December 2005): 1115–22, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2005.03.044.
7.Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff, “Glyphosate, Pathways to Modern Diseases IV: Cancer and Related Pathologies,” Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry 15 (2015): 121–59, https://doi.org/10.4024/11SA15R.jbpc.15.03.
8.Stephanie Seneff and Laura F. Orlando, “Glyphosate Substitution for Glycine During Protein Synthesis as a Causal Factor in Mesoamerican Nephropathy,” Journal of Environmental & Analytical Toxicology 8, no. 1 (2018): 541, https://doi.org/10.4172/2161-0525.1000541.