Gut Microbiome.....what a mouthful.

Maybe you've heard the buzz about the "gut microbiome".  It seems that many researchers are now finding that the health and balance of the good bacteria in your digestive system is critical to maintaining health. 

Ironically, this is what many in the natural foods areas have been saying for quite some time.  More recently, the group Moms Across America has been highlighting (to put it lightly) the connections between an unhealthy gut microbiome, and glyphosate residue in our food supply.

Here's a quote from one article reporting on the Nature study (Italicized text is my emphasis.). 

• “What we’ve been attempting to understand for the past several years is the increase in metabolic syndrome and inflammatory bowel diseases” that affect digestion, explains Andrew Gewirtz, Georgia State University professor of biology and lead study author. Metabolic syndrome includes obesity, increased risk for Type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases like heart attacks and strokes. All these conditions, Gewirtz explains, “are associated with changes in gut bacteria.” The recent, dramatic increase in metabolic-related diseases cannot be attributed solely to genetics, says Gewirtz. Human genetics haven’t changed in recent decades. So he and his colleagues set out to investigate environmental factors that might be responsible, including “modern additions to the food supply.” - See more at: http://civileats.com/2015/02/25/how-emulsifiers-are-messing-with-our-guts-and-making-us-fat/#sthash.4xaQW26v.dpuf 

More studies highlighting the importance of gut microbiota on health.

• "The intestinal tract is inhabited by a large and diverse community of microbes collectively referred to as the gut microbiota. While the gut microbiota provides important benefits to its host, especially in metabolism and immune development, disturbance of the microbiota–host relationship is associated with numerous chronic inflammatory diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease and the group of obesity-associated diseases collectively referred to as metabolic syndrome. A primary means by which the intestine is protected from its microbiota is via multi-layered mucus structures that cover the intestinal surface, thereby allowing the vast majority of gut bacteria to be kept at a safe distance from epithelial cells that line the intestine¹. Thus, agents that disrupt mucus–bacterial interactions might have the potential to promote diseases associated with gut inflammation."  http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7541/full/nature14232.html

Dr. Mercola weighs in on the topic.

• "Feeding health-promoting gut bacteria with a healthy diet, avoiding hospitals (which are hotbeds for drug-resistant bacteria), and boycotting processed foods and animal foods raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs)—both of which tend to have an adverse effect on your microbiome—may be keystone strategies for longevity."
• "While antibiotics are certainly overprescribed in medicine, the primary driver of deadly “superbugs” is actually factory farming. Animals raised in CAFOs are routinely given low doses of antibiotics to promote growth and prevent diseases resulting from the crowded and unsanitary conditions of these facilities. Eighty percent of all antibiotics sold in the US are fed to livestock, so eating CAFO-raised foods is likely to be the greatest source of antibiotics for many people. Not only may this low-dose ingestion of antibiotics have an adverse effect on the composition of your microbiome, thereby affecting your health, about half of all meats sold in American grocery stores have also been found to harbor drug-resistant bacteria that can cause severe food-borne illness."

Perhaps this whole mess shouldn't be blamed on the "overuse of antibiotics by the farmers" (while that may be the case in some instances).  They're missing the bigger picture.  In every instance of a confined animal operation, GMO's and grain/feed containing glyphosate residue are fed.  Studies have shown that glyphosate residue in the feed will effectively do the same thing to beneficial gut bacteria as an antibiotic.  The good bacteria in the manure is dead, while harmful bacteria like e.coli and salmonella thrive (because it is doing the same thing inside the animal....).  This continues on to the consumer because the glyphosate residue is also in the grains/food crops we eat, and the effect of it lingers in meat (see news stories about all the salmonella in meat, etc).  Glyphosate is registered as an antibiotic, so this should surprise no one.  In fact, the first part of creating these GMO's is to insert an antibiotic resistant gene.  That sounds like a complete recipe for disaster of a food system to me.  No surprise no one has a healthy gut biome.  Not only are the fields being sprayed, but the effects of that linger in the environment through the water, air, soil and crops, in addition to the GMO seed used.  Definitely not sustainable for anyone, not even the major agribusinesses in the long run.

 

Just my 2 cents.