New Glyphosate Study to start the New Year

A new study published on 9 January 2017 shows that glyphosate may cause liver disease when ingested at very low levels by rats.

The King’s College study concludes as follows:

“The results of the study presented here imply that chronic consumption of extremely low levels of a GBH formulation (Roundup), at admissible glyphosate-equivalent concentrations, are associated with marked alterations of the liver proteome and metabolome.”

These changes to the liver “overlap with biomarkers of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease” and “its progression to non-alcoholic steatohepatosis”, thus confirming “metabolic dysfunction resulting from chronic exposure to an ultra-low dose of Roundup.”

This latest publication comes as the EU is reviewing whether or not glyphosate should be classified as a carcinogen and the UK agricultural community has both welcomed the study and met the news with skepticism.

Farming Today on BBC Radio 4 included a story on the study, with comments from Dr Michael Antoniou, the senior author of the study, and a representative from Monsanto, the producer of Roundup®.

The article, published in Scientific Reports (the online open-access journal from Nature), is freely available at: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep39328