Fast food gets encoded in the DNA of future children, study finds.

Fast food gets encoded in the DNA of future children, study finds. (RT).

The next time you wolf down that Big Mac with large fries consider you may be affecting more than your own waistline. Scientists now say an unhealthy diet can be encoded into DNA, which is passed down to future generations.

By now, most people have heard various negative things about a Western diet: it is too fatty, too salty and too sugary. It can cause problems to the immune system, disturb the chemical makeup of the stomach, and, perhaps the most obvious of all symptoms, lead to obesity.

Now, a study from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Maryland has provided yet another reason to drive past your favorite drive thru window: the deleterious effects of a poor diet can leave a mark on the DNA, passing along the genes to your offspring.

The harmful effects of an unhealthy diet can “actually stretch across generations,” wrote Ian Myles, author of the study, which appeared in Nutrition Journal.

Myles concludes that only a radical change of lifestyle will stop the transfer of stained DNA to future generations of babies. He also warned on the apparent uselessness of commercial extracts as a means of countering a poor diet.

“The benefits of dietary modification over supplementation is furthered by evidence showing that dietary supplementation does not increase longevity, indicating that…commercial interventions such as tea or berry extracts are unlikely to counteract poor dietary habits,” he advised.

Myles advised that people should eliminate sugar and fat in processed form from their diets and move to fresh sources of protein – and fat – such as fish and meat. Read the full story here.
  

Chemical, used by Monsanto, found in urine of Europeans - study.

Chemical, used by Monsanto, found in urine of Europeans - study.HT: RussiaToday.

Residents of 18 European states have been tested positively to traces of glyphosate, a globally used weed killer, the study says. It remains unclear how the chemical used on Monsanto GMO corps got in people’s bodies.

It turns out that 44 per cent of volunteers had it in their urine, but it is yet unclear how the herbicide got into their systems.
“These results suggest we are being exposed to glyphosate in our everyday lives,” Adrian Bebb, spokesperson of environmental group Friends of the Earth (FoE) said in a statement.

The study, carried out between March and May 2013, showed that proportions of positive samples varies between countries, with Malta (90 per cent) , Germany (70 per cent), UK (70 per cent)  and Poland being “the most positive samples” and Macedonia and Switzerland – “the lowest”.

"Our testing highlights a serious lack of action by public authorities across Europe and indicates that this weed killer is being widely overused,” the group said.
Glyphosate is essentially used on plants including grasses, sedges, broad-leaved weeds and woody plants as well as great variety of genetically modified crops. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto's herbicide Roundup, which is sprayed in large amounts on genetically engineered, so-called "Roundup Ready," crops.
“It is crucial for growing genetically modified (GM) crops, many of which are modified to withstand glyphosate,” FoE said.
All volunteers, who provided their urine samples, are people from European cities; they had no contact with glyphosate or used products containing it in the run-up to the tests.
However, after testing volunteers’ samples  the group still cannot say “where it is coming from, how widespread it is in the environment, or what it is doing to our health.”
This study is the first of its kind because despite being widely used in farming and gardening, there is little monitoring of glyphosate in food, water or the wider environment. Commonly tests with glyphosate are conducted with rats, dogs, mice, and rabbits in studies lasting from 21 days to two years.
The FoE members are concerned that the problem many increase as “14 new GM crops designed to be cultivated with glyphosate are currently waiting for approval to be grown in Europe.” “Approval of these crops would inevitably lead to a further increase of glyphosate spraying in the EU,” the group concluded.
  Despite considered relatively non-toxic, there are groups of scientists concerned that glyphosate may disrupt the human hormone system, be an 'endocrine disruptor', cause DNA damage and even cancer. One of the recent reviews, conducted by MIT, also highlighted dangerous health effects of glyphosate, including increased cancer risk, neurotoxicity, and birth defects, as well as eye, skin, and respiratory irritation, but still said that more independent research is needed to prove their findings.
We “have hit upon something very important that needs to be taken seriously and further investigated,” Stephanie Seneff, PhD, lead author and research scientist at MIT, told Reuters in May, shortly after the review was made. Read the full story here.

"Move along nothing to see here" - 'Monsanto Protection Act' slips silently through US Congress.

Dees illustrations

"Move along nothing to see here" - 'Monsanto Protection Act' slips silently through US Congress.(RT).
The rider, which is officially known as the Farmer Assurance Provision, has been derided by opponents of biotech lobbying as the “Monsanto Protection Act,” as it would strip federal courts of the authority to immediately halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns.

The provision, also decried as a “biotech rider,” should have gone through the Agricultural or Judiciary Committees for review. Instead, no hearings were held, and the piece was evidently unknown to most Democrats (who hold the majority in the Senate) prior to its approval as part of HR 993, the short-term funding bill that was approved to avoid a federal government shutdown.

Senator John Tester (D-MT) proved to be the lone dissenter to the so-called Monsanto Protection Act, though his proposed amendment to strip the rider from the bill was never put to a vote.

As the US legal system functions today, and largely as a result of prior lawsuits, the USDA is required to complete environmental impact statements (EIS) prior to both the planting and sale of GMO crops. The extent and effectiveness to which the USDA exercises this rule is in itself a source of serious dispute.

The reviews have been the focus of heated debate between food safety advocacy groups and the biotech industry in the past. In December of 2009, for example, Food Democracy Now collected signatures during the EIS commenting period in a bid to prevent the approval of Monsanto’s GMO alfalfa, which many feared would contaminate organic feed used by dairy farmers; it was approved regardless.

Previously discovered pathogens in Monsanto’s Roundup Ready corn and soy are suspected of causing infertility in livestock and to impact the health of plants.

So, just how much of a victory is this for biotech companies like Monsanto? Critics are thus far alarmed by the very way in which the provision made it through Congress -- the rider was introduced anonymously as the larger bill progressed through the Senate Appropriations Committee. Now, groups like the Center for Food Safety are holding Senator Mikulski (D-MD), chairman of that committee, to task and lobbing accusations of a “backroom deal” with the biotech industry.

As the Washington Times points out, the provision’s success is viewed by many as a victory by companies like Syngenta Corp, Cargill, Monsanto and affiliated PACs that have donated $7.5 million to members of Congress since 2009, and $372,000 to members of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

It remains unclear whether the bill’s six-month expiration means that the provision will be short-lived. Regardless, Food Democracy Now has begun a campaign calling on US President Barack Obama to veto the Continuing Resolution spending bill, which seems unlikely as HR 933 includes a sweeping amount of government funding.Hmmmm....Monsanto Exec Heads FDA, and the Obama Administration’s Revolving Door Politics.Read the full story here.

Related: How Monsanto outfoxed the Obama administration.