Do GMOs Cause Gluten Intolerance?
One of the many startling revelations in Jeffrey Smith’s timely documentary Genetic Roulette: The Gamble of Our Lives is just how striking the parallel is between the rise in digestive disorders and the rise in foods containing genetically modified organisms over the last two decades.
According to the film, digestive disorders have skyrocketed since GMOs have entered the food supply: irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, chronic constipation, gastrointestinal infections, Crohn’s disease, leaky gut syndrome and acid reflux have all seen sharp inclines in the last two decades, as has the incidence of gluten intolerance and Celiac’s disease.
One of the likely culprits, suggest Smith is the Bt toxin (Bacillus thuringiensis), registered with the EPA as a pesticide, making the plants (primarily corn and cotton) expressing the bacteria, pesticides as well. The Bt toxin effectively kills insects by exploding their stomachs by poking holes in cells. While scientists for the biotech industry have said the human digestive process destroys any traces of Bt toxins left in our food, the continuing rise in digestive disorders including gluten intolerance suggests otherwise. Smith also cites a 2011 study conducted by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Sherbrooke Hospital Centre in Quebec, Canada that found Bt toxins in the blood of 93 percent of pregnant women and 80 percent of unborn babies, a condition that would not be possible if the digestive process destroyed the toxin, as the industry suggests.
This video discussion between Jeffrey Smith and Tom Malterre, MS, CN explores the GMO and gluten connection in detail. While wheat grown in the U.S. is not genetically modified, alterations to the crop have long been thought to be a leading cause of gluten sensitivities. And that may be a considerable factor. But, Smith suggests that the prevalence of GMOs in our diet is causing leaky gut syndrome, by which holes are poked through the digestive tract (consistent with Bt toxin behavior) causing the inappropriate absorption of food which sets off a chain reaction—sending proteins to immune cells that cause inflammatory responses, for example, and slews of other illnesses (listed above) including some autoimmune disorders.
GMO crops treated with the pesticide glyphosate (Monsanto’s Roundup) retain high levels of the pesticide, which is, in effect, an antibiotic that has been patented to kill gut bacteria, and could be the cause of another common digestive condition called SIBO (Small Intestinal Bowel Overgrowth), where bacterial imbalances have been found in the intenstines and connected to a number of other disorders.The majority of GMO crops grown in the U.S.: corn, soy, canola, cotton and sugar beets, are all routinely sprayed with glyphosate.
For more information on GMOs and gluten sensitivities, watch the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIBL-UBWYdY&;feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnlTYFKBg18&;feature=relmfu
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