Electronic Cigarettes Contain Higher Levels of Toxic Metal Nanopartices Than Tobacco Smoke

A concerning new study found that the aerosol from electronic cigarettes contains higher levels of measurable nanoparticle heavy metals than conventional tobacco smoke.

A new study published in the journal PLoS One has uncovered a concerning fact about electronic cigarettes (EC): toxic metal and silicate particles including nanoparticles are present in both the cigarette fluid and aerosol.

Researchers at the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, University of California Riverside, tested the hypothesis that electronic cigarettes (EC) contain metals from various components in EC.  They employed a variety of testing methods to ascertain the level of contamination, including light and electron microscopy, cytotoxicity testing, and x-ray microanalysis. Their results were reported as follows:

The filament, a nickel-chromium wire, was coupled to a thicker copper wire coated with silver. The silver coating was sometimes missing. Four tin solder joints attached the wires to each other and coupled the copper/silver wire to the air tube and mouthpiece. All cartomizers had evidence of use before packaging (burn spots on the fibers and electrophoretic movement of fluid in the fibers). Fibers in two cartomizers had green deposits that contained copper. Centrifugation of the fibers produced large pellets containing tin. Tin particles and tin whiskers were identified in cartridge fluid and outer fibers. Cartomizer fluid with tin particles was cytotoxic in assays using human pulmonary fibroblasts. The aerosol contained particles >1 µm comprised of tin, silver, iron, nickel, aluminum, and silicate and nanoparticles (<100 nm) of tin, chromium and nickel. The concentrations of nine of eleven elements in EC aerosol were higher than or equal to the corresponding concentrations in conventional cigarette smoke. Many of the elements identified in EC aerosol are known to cause respiratory distress and disease.

The study authors concluded that "The presence of metal and silicate particles in cartomizer [atomizer/cartridge connecting to the battery] aerosol demonstrates the need for improved quality control in EC design and manufacture and studies on how EC aerosol impacts the health of users and bystanders."

Discussion

While e-cigarettes are rightly marketed as safer than conventional tobacco cigarettes, which contain thousands of known toxic compounds including highly carcinogenic radioactive isotopes, they have not been without controversy.  In May 2009, the US Food and Drug Administration Division of Pharmaceutical Analysis found diethylene glycol, a poisonous liquid used in explosives and antifreeze, in one of the cartridges they sampled. They also discovered the cancer-causing agent, tobacco-specific nitrosamines, in a number of commonly used brands.

The findings of this latest PLoS One study refutes proponents of e-cigarettes who claim that the health risks of smoking are eliminated with their use. Heavy metals like tin, aluminum, cadmium, lead and selenite are increasingly being recognized as carrying significant endocrine disrupting potential and belong to a class of metals known as 'metalloestrogens.'

One of the unintended, adverse consequences of nanotechnology in general is that by making a substance substantially smaller in size than would occur naturally, or though pre-nanotech production processes, the substance may exhibit significantly higher toxicity when in nanoparticle form. Contrary to older toxicological risk models, less is more: by reducing a particle's size the technology has now made that substance capable of evading the body's natural defenses more easily, i.e. passing through pores in the skin or mucous membranes, evading immune and detoxification mechanisms that evolved millions of years before the nanotech era.

For example, when nickel particles are reduced in size to the nanometer range (one billionth of a meter wide) they may actually become more toxic to the endocrine system as now they are capable of direct molecular interaction with estrogen receptors in the body, disrupting their normal structure and function. Moreover, breathing these particles into the lungs, along with other metals, ethylene glycol and nicotine produces a chemical concoction exhibiting synergistic toxicity, i.e. the toxicity of the whole is higher than the sum of their parts. These sorts of "chemical soups" are exceedingly difficult to study, as they embody a complexity that analytical and theoretical models within toxicology are not equipped to readily handle. Nonetheless, it is likely that when taken together the harms done by e-cigarettes are significant, and will likely manifest only after chronic use when identifying 'singular causes' of disease is nearly impossible. Regulators will have a hard time, therefore, identifying a "smoking" gun even after a broad range of health issues do emerge in exposed populations.

Ultimately, finding a less harmful alternative to tobacco smoking is justified, but let buyer (and user) beware, the products are not without possible harm as some marketers falsely advertise.

Insecticides May Be Linked to Kids' Behavior Problems

Organophosphate pesticides are known for their hazards to human health. Prenatal exposure, for example, has been linked to delayed brain development, reduced IQ, and attention deficits.

As a result, pyrethroids—synthetic chemicals derived from natural chemicals found in chrysanthemums—have risen in popularity over the past decade. There are currently more than 3,500 commercial products containing this insecticide. This includes items like roach sprays, flea bombs, and dog flea or tick collars and medicated shampoos.

Pyrethroids are well-known to be highly toxic to cats, and the most frequent reason for pyrethroid poisoning in cats is the incorrect and unadvised application of dog flea or tick medication.

You can identify pyrethroids in any given product by reading the label. Compounds that end in “thrin,” such as bifenthrin, permethrin and cypermethrin, are all pyrethroids. Alas, switching to pyrethroids may not have been the wisest move. Animal studies suggest it causes neurological-, immune-, and reproductive damage. And, as usual, the human health effects are still largely unknown, despite its widespread use.

Now, Canadian research suggests pyrethroids may be associated with behavior problems in children. As reported by Scientific American:

“The findings raise some questions about the safety of the compounds, which have replaced other insecticides with known risks to children’s brain development.

Exposure to pyrethroids, which kill insects by interfering with their nervous systems, is widespread because they are used inside homes and schools, in municipal mosquito control and on farms.”

Common Insecticide May have Adverse Effects on Your Child’s Development:

The study in question tested urine samples from 779 Canadian children, aged 6-11, and the parents answered questions relating to their child’s behavior. Shockingly, even at that tender young age, 97 percent of the children had pyrethroid breakdown products in their urine. Ninety-one percent also had traces of organophosphate pesticides.

“A 10-fold increase in urinary levels of one pyrethroid breakdown product, cis-DCCA, was associated with a doubling in the odds of a child scoring high for parent-reported behavioral problems, such as inattention and hyperactivity,” the featured article reports.

A previous study found that toddlers who had been exposed to pyrethroids while in utero had lower development scores compared to unexposed children. According to a 2006 EPA review, animal research has also shown that even low levels of some of these compounds have an adverse effect on:

Immune function
Nervous system development
Behavioral Development
Liver
Thyroid
Reproductive hormones

Some pyrethroids act as endocrine disruptors by mimicking estrogen. Such hormone-disrupting chemicals can raise your levels of estrogen, thereby promoting the growth of estrogen-sensitive cancers such as breast cancer.

As stated by Dana Boyd Barr, a research professor of environmental health at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta: “Pyrethroids are obviously a safer alternative to organophosphates, but just because they are safer doesn’t mean they are safe.”

Are You Using this Toxic Bug Spray On or Near Your Kids?

Permethrin—a member of the synthetic pyrethroid family—can also be found in many commercial bug sprays. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), permethrin is carcinogenic7, capable of causing lung tumors, liver tumors, immune system problems, and chromosomal abnormalities. Permethrin is also damaging to the environment, and it is particularly toxic to bees and aquatic life.

Despite that, approximately 2 million pounds of permethrin are applied to agricultural, residential and public sites each year. The majority, about 70 percent, is applied in non-agricultural settings; more than 40 percent of it is applied by homeowners in residential areas, so there’s plenty of room for individuals to take personal control over this chemical exposure.

While it may be tempting to douse your kids with bug spray in order to prevent bugs from biting them, there are plenty of other tricks that can keep bugs at bay that don't involve the application of neurotoxic and potentially carcinogenic chemicals.

article by Dr Mercola

9 Evidence-Based Medicinal Properties of Oranges

by Sayer Ji

The orange is both a literal and symbolic embodiment of the sun, from whose light it is formed. As a whole food it irradiates us with a spectrum of healing properties, the most prominent of which some call “vitamin C activity,” but which is not reducible to the chemical skeleton known as ‘ascorbic acid.’ Science now confirms the orange has a broad range of medicinal properties, which is why the ancients knew it both as a food and a medicine.

“It’s bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children’s health than the pediatrician.”

~ Meryl Streep

As our increasingly overdiagnosed and overmedicated population leaps lemming-like over the cliff of conventional medicine, with most drugs carrying a dozen or more adverse side effects for every benefit advertised, we can find great wisdom in Meryl Streep’s quote.

Indeed, many common fruits and vegetables “crouching” at the local produce stand have “hidden healing powers,” and have been used as both medicines and nourishing foods since time immemorial.

I firmly believe that access to fresh, organic produce is as vital a health necessity as access to water, and clean air. Without the regular consumption of these foods, suboptimal health, and likely many diseases, is inevitable. One could rightly say that chemotherapy and radiotherapy were invented mainly to treat fruit and vegetable deficiency, but of course providing a solution far worse than the disease, and certainly eternally incapable of addressing the root causes of cancer.

Orange is one such food-medicine marvel, containing a broad range of compounds increasingly being recognized to be essential for human health. We consider it a sweet treat, its juice a refreshing beverage, but do we ever really reflect on its medicinal properties?  GreenMedInfo.com has indexed no less than 37 distinct health benefits its use may confer, all of which can be explored on our Orange Medicinal Properties research page.  What follows are some of its most well-established therapeutic applications, divided into three parts: the juice, the peel and the aroma:

The Juice of the Orange

Many of us mistakenly look to orange juice today as a dangerous source of highly concentrated fructose – simple “carbs” – without recognizing its profound medicinal properties. We sometimes think we can get the vitamin C activity oranges contain through the semi-synthetic ‘nutrient’ ascorbic acid, without realizing that an orange embodies (as do all whole foods) a complex orchestra of chemistries…  The ‘monochemical nutrient’ – ascorbic acid – is merely a shadow of the vitamin C activity that is carried and expressed through only living foods. The orange, after all, looks like a miniature sun, is formed as a condensation of energy and information from sunlight, and therefore is capable of storing and after being eaten irradiating us with life-giving packets of information-dense gene-regulating nutrition, by a mechanism that will never be fully reducible to or intelligible by the chemical skeleton we know of as ascorbic acid.

Given that thought, here are some of the evidence-based benefits of orange juice:

• Orange Juice Improves “Good” Cholesterol: While it is debatable that lowering so-called “LDL” cholesterol is nearly as good for heart health as statin drug manufacturers would like for us to believe, raising “HDL” cholesterol does seem to have real health benefits. This is, however, quite hard to do with diet and nutrition, and impossible through medication. Other than taking high-dose fish oil, few things have been studied to be effective. Except, that is, orange juice.  A 2000 study found that the consumption of 750 mL of orange juice a day, over a 4 weeks, improved blood lipid profiles by decreasing the LDL-HDL cholesterol ratio by 16% in patients with elevated cholesterol.
• Orange Juice Boosts Bone Health: A 2006 animal study in male rats found that orange juice positively influenced antioxidant status and bone strength.
• Orange Juice (mixed with Blackcurrant Juice) Reduces Inflammation: A 2009 study in patients with peripheral artery disease found that orange and blackcurrant juice reduced C-reactive protein (11%)  and fibrinogen levels (3%), two concrete measures of systemic inflammation.  A 2010 study found that Orange juice neutralizes the proinflammatory effect of a high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal and prevents endotoxin induced toxicity.
• Orange Juice Boosts Weight Loss: A 2011 study found that children who regularly drank orange juice consumed an average of 523 calories a day more than children who did not drink orange juice regularly. Yet surprisingly, there was no difference in the weight levels between the orange juice consumers and the non-orange juice consumers.
• Orange Juice May Dissolve Kidney Stones: A 2006 study found that orange juice consumption was associated with lower calculated calcium oxalate supersaturation and lower calculated undissociated uric acid, two indices of lowered urinary calcium stone formation.
• Orange Juice Extract Suppresses Prostate Proliferation: Despite the fructose content, a 2006 study found a standardized extract of red orange juice inhibited the proliferation of human prostate cells in vitro.

The Peel of the Orange

The peel of the orange contains a broad range of potent, potentially therapeutic compounds.  These include pectin and flavonoid constituents, such as hersperiden, naringin, polymethoxyflavones, quercetin and rutin, various carotenoids, and a major odor constituent known as d-limonene, which makes up 90% of the citrus peel oil content, and is a compound that gets its name from the rind of the lemon, which contains a significant quantity of it. It is listed in the US Code of Federal Regulations as generally recognized as safe (GRAS), and is commonly used as a flavoring agent.  D-limonene has been studied to have potent anti-cancer properties, including against metastatic melanoma.

The whole peel extract has been studied to have a wide range of benefits:

• Orange Peel exhibits Anti-Arthritic Properties: A 2010 study found that orange peel extract significant suppressed vaccine adjuvant-induced arthritis in a preclinical model.
• Orange Peel (Flavonoids) Exhibit Anti-Cancer Properties:  A 2007 study found that orange peel extract inhibited tumorigenesis in a preclinical mouse model of adenomatous polyposis and increases programmed cell death.  Two additional 2007studies found that orange peel extract has anti-breast cancer properties. The first, by exhibiting chemopreventive properties against mammary tumor lesions in an animal model.  The second, by inhibiting breast cancer cell lines in vitro.  Additionally, a 2000 study found that flavanone intake is inversely associated with esophageal cancer risk and may account, with vitamin C, for the protective effect of fruit, especially citrus fruit, on esophageal cancer.   Finally, a 2005 study found that carotenoids from orange may help to reverse multidrug resistance.

The Aroma of the Orange

The physiological mechanisms by which aromas may have therapeutic properties (aroma-therapy) are well-established. The small molecules that comprise the aroma of things, are capable of entering directly through the nostrils and into the olfactory lobe, thus enabling them to have profound affects on deep structures within our brain, and as a result our entire bodily and emotional infrastructure.

Good News: Artificial Sweeteners Gaining Increasingly Bad Press

By Dr. Mercola

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB6L9S_jc5E   Aspartame: The Bitter Truth

Soda and other sweetened beverages have been pinpointed as some of the primary culprits in the obesity epidemic.

Recent research also suggests that regular soda consumption may increase aggressive behavior in young children. The study found that each incremental increase in daily soft drink servings resulted in a corresponding rise in aggression scores.

In an obvious effort to save the beverage industry, companies like Coca-Colahave rolled out glossy ads touting the myth that you simply need to exercise more to burn off the extra calories. This “conventional wisdom” has been firmly debunked by science. Not all calories count equally...

Coca-Cola has also resorted to fake “infomercials” that look like public service announcements touting the “scientifically proven” safety and benefits of aspartame for those struggling with their weight.

For this, I think they ought to be fined for fraud by the FTC, as research has repeatedly demonstrated that artificial sweeteners actually make you gain equal or more weight than regular sugar. In fact, research has shown that diet sodas may actually double your risk of obesity.

Furthermore, recent research has also demonstrated that aspartame worsens insulin sensitivity to a greater degree than sugar, making it a hidden threat to those trying to manage their diabetes.

Artificial sweeteners of all kinds have been found to wreak havoc in a number of different ways. Aspartame, for example, has a long list of studies indicating its harmful effects to you and your family, ranging from brain damage to pre-term delivery.

Unfortunately, most public health agencies and nutritionists in the United States still recommend these toxic artificial sweeteners as acceptable and even preferred alternatives to sugar, which is at best confusing and at worst seriously damaging the health of those who listen to this well-intentioned but foolish advice.

Your Brain Is Not Fooled by Non-Caloric Sweetness

According to a report published in the journal Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, diet soda drinkers actually suffer the same exact health problems as those who opt for regular soda, including excessive weight gain, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke.

Part of the reason why artificial sweeteners don’t work as advertised (such as help you lose weight and manage your insulin) relates to the fact that your brain is simply not fooled by sweet taste without accompanying calories. Reporting on such research, FoodNavigator.com recently wrote:

“Published in The Journal of Physiology, the research findings suggest that our pleasure in consuming sweet solutions is driven in great extent by the amount of energy it provides—revealing that greater ‘reward’ in the brain is attributed to sugars when compared to artificial sweeteners.”

Scientific American also recently ran an article explaining the science behind this phenomenon. In a nutshell, when you eat something sweet, your brain releases dopamine, which supplies you with a jolt of pleasure.

Your brain’s reward center is activated. The appetite-regulating hormone leptin is also released, which eventually informs your brain that you are “full” once a certain amount of calories have been ingested.

In contrast, when you consume something sweet but non-caloric (i.e. an artificial sweetener), your brain’s pleasure pathway is still activated by the sweet taste, but there’s nothing to deactivate it, since your body is still waiting for the calories. As a result, you may end up overeating.

Drs Oz and Roizen Weigh in on Artificial Sweeteners

In a recent article in The Oregonian, Drs. Mehmet Oz and Mike Roizen discussed these increasingly hard-to-hide issues as well.

“[E]ven with FDA approval, conflicting and often bothersome research about calorie-free sweeteners keeps bubbling to the surface. The latest? Evidence from human studies shows that artificially sweetened drinks are associated with weight gain in adults and teens, and raise risk for diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

Some data even suggest that these zero-calorie sips could double the risk for metabolic syndrome, a huge risk factor for diabetes and heart disease. Other recent reports show consumption is linked to higher rates of depression,” they write.

The sad fact is, Americans in particular are addicted to sweet flavors, which appears to trigger a complex set of biological systems, pathways, and mechanisms that in the end leads to excess weight gain—whether that flavor comes loaded with calories or not.

In the end, the research tells us that artificial sweeteners are nothing more than a pipe dream when it comes to being a dieter’s aid, because contrary to what the marketing campaigns claim, low- or no-calorie artificial sweeteners are more likely to help you pack on the pounds than shed them.

When You See “Aspartame,” Think “Formaldehyde”

Of the various artificial sweeteners on the market, aspartame is perhaps one of the most problematic. At least it has the most reported adverse effects. In fact, aspartame is the number one source of side-effect complaints to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with over 10,000 complaints filed and over 91 symptoms documented that are related to its consumption. 

Besides that, there’s been persistent suspicions that aspartame may contribute to the development of more serious diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s, among others.

According to Dr. Russell Blaylock, a retired neurosurgeon who has written three books about the health dangers of excitotoxins (which includes aspartame and MSG), Dr. Adrian Gross, the FDA's toxicologist who examined the aspartame research initially presented to the FDA for approval by G.D. Searle, was "absolutely shocked" at the evidence showing "an enormous increase in tumors, particularly brain tumors."

More recently, a lifetime feeding study published in 2010 found that aspartame induced cancers of the liver and lung in male mice. It was also carcinogenic in male and female rats. Another study of great importance was published just last year. It’s the most comprehensive and longest human study— spanning 22 years — that has ever looked at aspartame toxicity. The study evaluated the effect between aspartame intake and cancer, and they found a clear association between aspartame consumption and non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and leukemia.

What might account for such disturbing findings?

The industry has fervently held fast to the myth that aspartame is harmless, claiming there’s “no biological explanation” for the health problems reported by so many after consuming aspartame. But this is where they’re wrong. According to toxicology expert Dr. Woody Monte, a biological and scientific explanation for aspartame’s pathway of harm does indeed exist, and it’s related to the effects of methanol and formaldehyde, both of which are extremely toxic.

How Aspartame Can Wreak Havoc with Your Health

Aaspartame is primarily made up of aspartic acid and phenylalanine. The phenylalanine has been synthetically modified to carry a methyl group, which provides the majority of the sweetness. That phenylalanine methyl bond, called a methyl ester, is very weak, which allows the methyl group on the phenylalanine to easily break off and form methanol.

You may have heard the claim that aspartame is harmless because methanol is also found in fruits and vegetables. However, in fruits and vegetables, the methanol is firmly bonded to pectin, allowing it to be safely passed through your digestive tract. Not so with the methanol created by aspartame; there it’s not bonded to anything that can help eliminate it from your body. That’s problem number one...

Problem number two relates to the fact that humans are the only mammals who are NOT equipped with a protective biological mechanism that breaks down methanol into harmless formic acid. This is why animal testing of aspartame does not fully apply to humans. According to Dr. Monte:

"There is a major biochemical problem here. Methyl alcohol is known now, and has been known since 1940, to be metabolized differently by humans from every other animal.'"

As explained by Dr. Monte, in humans, the methanol ends up acting as a Trojan horse, and here’s how. Both animals and humans have small structures called peroxisomes in each cell. There are a couple of hundred in every cell of your body, which are designed to detoxify a variety of chemicals. Peroxisome contains catalase, which help detoxify methanol. Other chemicals in the peroxisome convert the formaldehyde to formic acid, which is harmless, but, again, this last step occurs only in animals. Human peroxisomes cannot convert the toxic formaldehyde into harmless formic acid.

So to recap: In humans, the methyl alcohol travels through your blood vessels into sensitive areas, such as your brain, that are loaded with ADH, which converts methanol to formaldehyde. And since there's no catalase present, the formaldehyde is free to cause enormous damage in your tissues.

Symptoms from methanol poisoning are many, and include headaches, ear buzzing, dizziness, nausea, gastrointestinal disturbances, weakness, vertigo, chills, memory lapses, numbness and shooting pains in the extremities, behavioral disturbances, and neuritis. The most well known problems from methanol poisoning are vision problems including misty vision, progressive contraction of visual fields, blurring of vision, obscuration of vision, retinal damage, and blindness. Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen that causes retinal damage, interferes with DNA replication and may cause birth defects.

What’s the Healthiest Beverage You Can Drink?

Sweetened beverages, whether it’s sweetened with sugar, HFCS, naturally-occurring fructose, or artificial sweeteners, are among the worst culprits in the fight against obesity and related health problems, including diabetes, heart and liver disease, just to name a few. Remember that sweetened beverages also include flavored milk products, bottled teas, and “enhanced” water products.

In my view, I believe it is irresponsibly negligent to flatly ignore the potential impact of artificial sweeteners on our skyrocketing disease rates. Telling people to consume a toxic agent “in moderation” is just reprehensibly negligent. Ditching ALL of these types of beverages can go a long way toward reducing your risk for chronic health problems and weight gain.

Your best, most cost effective choice of beverage is filtered tap water. I strongly recommend using a high-quality water filtration system unless you can verify the purity of your water. To be absolutely certain you are getting the purest water you can, you'll want to filter the water both at the point of entry and at the point of use. This means filtering all the water that comes into the house, and then filtering again at the kitchen sink. I currently use a whole house carbon-based water filtration system, and prior to this I used reverse osmosis (RO) to purify my water.

Ideal Water Sources

Besides purification, I also believe it’s critical to drink living water. I recently interviewed Dr. Gerald Pollack about his book, The Fourth Phase of Water: Beyond Solid, Liquid, and Vapor. This fourth phase of water is referred to as ”structured water” and is the type of water found in all of your cells. This water has healing properties, and is naturally created in a variety of ways.

Water from a deep spring is one excellent source of structured water. The deeper the better, as structured water is created under pressure. There's a great website called FindaSpring.com where you can find a natural spring in your area.

But you can also promote structured water through vortexing. I personally drink vortexed water nearly exclusively as I became a big fan of Viktor Schauberger who did much pioneering work on vortexing about a century ago. Dr. Pollack found that by creating a vortex in a glass of water, you’re putting more energy into it, thereby increasing the structure of the water. According to Dr. Pollack, virtually ANY energy put into the water seems to create or build structured water.

My own R&D team is working on a careful study in which we use vortexed water to grow sprouts, to evaluate the vitality and effectiveness of the water. We’ve already budgeted a quarter million for this internal research to develop the best vortex machine on the market, because we believe an ideal vortexer could be one of the simplest ways to improve people’s health and we hope to bring it to market in the next few years.

Are GMOs a Concern in Healthy Eating?

 A common question today is "Are GMOs a concern in healthy eating?" Genetically Modified Organism, or GMO for short, is an organism in which the genetic material (the DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally. There are no rules and no regulations (in the US) as to what parts of DNA can be used or even as to what species may be crossed with others. The majority of GMOs are food crops.  Pesticides and herbicides developed from bacteria are inserted into the DNA of the food supply to make them pest resistant or immune to the herbicide sprays. 

 

For the US, the percentages of GMO crops include: 

 

Soy (94%) 

Cotton (90%) 

Canola (90%) 

Sugar beets (95%)

Corn (88%)

Hawaiian papaya (more than 50%)

Zucchini and yellow squash (over 24,000 acres are GMO). 

 

The food crops listed above produce a known toxin within every cell of the plant. As a result, the original DNA of the plant has been permanently altered or mutated forever. Research finds many of these mutations are not known before entering the market. Molecular biologist and protein chemist David Schubert states, "Introduction of one gene usually alters the gene expression pattern of the whole cell, and typically each cell type of the organism will respond differently."  Therefore, a GMO is a new kind of plant or organism altogether and we do not know how it will react in our bodies or the environment.

 

Cotton and corn crops are most commonly altered with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). This bacterium is known to rapidly paralyze the invading insect's digestive system thereby destroying it. Bt has also been linked to allergies and illnesses in humans and other mammals.  The Bt found in genetically engineered crops is "1,500-3,000 times the level found in sprayed plants. Since the Bt-toxin is exempted from the requirement of a tolerance, there are no legal limits as to how much can be expressed in food." If the spray is known to affect humans, how much more can we expect from the DNA inserted food?

 

There is also the question of "Anti-nutrients" which "are compounds that decrease the nutritional value of food, usually by making a nutrient unavailable or indigestible."  These are commonly discovered in GMO crops. It is also found that one GMO crop can differ in nutritional value considerably compared to the next. Therefore, this would seriously question the school's motto of "nourish" since the exact nourishment is unknown. No long term safety studies have ever been conducted on the effects of exposure to, or the consumption of GMOs, let alone the effects on the environment.  

 

We do know these facts: 

 

GMO foods came into the market in late 1990's and early 2000's.

Soy allergies skyrocked by 50% in the UK, soon after GE soy was introduced. 

Bee Colony Collapse Disorder has threatened our pollenated plants since at least 2005.

There is an alarming rise of food allergies and their severity over the past 10 years.

Increase of digestive disturbances in humans over the past 10 years.

Appearance of "superbugs" and "superweeds" that are becoming less and less responsive to pesticides and herbicides.

 

There is no nutritional or environmental benefit from either growing or consuming GMO food.  In fact, the exact opposite may be true. To avoid becoming an experiment in this "Genetic Roulette" become aware of what you eat!  Look for organic. The "USDA Organic" label prohibits GE in their products. Also look for the "Non-GMO Project Verified Seal". READ ALL food labels. If there is corn or soy listed in any form, it is most likely GE. Sugar is almost certainly a combination of sugar cane and GMO sugar beets. Dairy must be labeled no rBGH, no rBST, or no artificial hormones in order to be free of the GMO bovine growth hormone. 

 

If the safety of GMO's matters to you then let your voice be heard. Be alert to government regulations and bills in office. Call up companies and restaurants to inquire if they have GMO ingredients they may be using. Let them know you will not patronize a GMO friendly business. Encourage them to "go organic". 

 

Article by Angela Sannapu, a Master Herbalist from the School of Natural Healing as well as a Diplomat in Holistic Iridology from the Internal Institute of Iridology.