The best-reasoned criticism of glyphosate is that it disrupts the gut biome (this is a fact). I suspect that many "gluten allergies" are actually gut biome problems from glyphosate-desiccated wheat.

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tptacek 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Anything that reaches the gut intact disrupts (ie: manipulates, interacts with, alters, stimulates or suppresses, selects) the gut biome. I'm not pushing back on you except to say that as a mechanistic axiomatic claim of harm, it's missing most of the evidence. You could be right, but you could also be wrong; what you've said so far can't possibly be dispositive.

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rpmisms 5 hours ago | parent [-]

The mechanism of action of glyphosate inhibits several important amino acid production processes in the gut. I'm simplifying here, but not having glyphosate in the food supply would be a good thing for the gut, and the science agrees on this.

Glyphosate for field prep also doesn't really come through in food, it's much worse with the pre-harvest desiccation.

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mapt 5 hours ago | parent [-]

You are inferring from our crude understanding of processes in general. Evidence is more specific.

Do you have an exclusion trial comparing glyphosate vs non-glyphosate diets? This is amenable to natural experiments where one country bans it on a specific date and the neighbor does not.

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rpmisms 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Here's a decent one: 13% of the UK reports gluten intolerance symptoms, and only 7% of Germany does. The UK allows pre-harvest glyphosate desiccation, Germany doesn't. I would be happy to bet that the trend continues past my quick Google search.

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tptacek 41 minutes ago | parent [-]

Surely there are no other lifestyle, supply chain, or medical system differences between the UK and Germany! Open and shut!

	▲	fragmede 36 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I mean, I went to an Ikea and a McDonald's in both those places, and they were the same, so surely everything else must be homogenized!

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bigbadfeline 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Do you have an exclusion trial comparing glyphosate vs non-glyphosate diets?

That's a rather sneaky way to invert the issue. It's fishing for random luck when you ask for more and harder to obtain evidence given existing facts pointing to possible harm. A single study that doesn't show harm doesn't refute those that do.

You have to provide hard evidence that glyphosate (or another non-essential ingredient) does not cause adverse effects, and thoroughly explain the differences with the studies that show the opposite - until you do that, any in-vitro or other studies that show harmful effects count against the use of the product and you cannot ask for more evidence, you can only accept the remedies.

In this case, the appropriate remedies can be different: banning it altogether, limiting it to specific usage (e.g. no pre-harvest spraying), labeling using LARGE PRINT and scary language or some combination of the above.

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tptacek an hour ago | parent [-]

You can't even get smoked fish accepted through precautionary-principle logic like that. This is the same reasoning that puts cancer warnings on bags of potato chips.

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bigbadfeline 4 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> You can't even get smoked fish accepted through precautionary-principle logic like that.

No, you really can't do that without breaking the Code of Federal Regulations. Smoked products must be labeled "smoked" in addition to many other requirements, and that despite the distinctive stink that self-labels these products. Even the font size is specified to be no smaller than the letters for the kind of meat on the label.

The real issue is why there's no such requirement for glyphosate, having it would be a good starting point.

> This is the same reasoning that puts cancer warnings on bags of potato chips.

I don't think all potato chips deserve, or have, such warnings but some might. Regardless, there might be specific regulations that are over the top and I don't mind admitting or discussing such cases but glyphosate isn't among them.

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vkou an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Smoked fish is a side, wheat is a staple. Degree matters.

If 90% of the raw food at the grocery were 'processed' in the same way that a smoked fish, or a french fry was, I think we'd have very valid reasons to be displeased with many of the myriad problems that come with that.

	▲	tptacek 40 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		First, no it isn't, not in the cultures where it's believed to cause stomach cancer. Second: at the point where you're talking about distinguishing public policy based on whether something is a "side dish" or not, I think we've left the realm of plausibility and entered a wonderful new land I call "the voivodeship of special pleading".

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ottah 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I will never understand this bizarre obsession with gut flora. We don't know what is normal, what is a beneficial ratio or when a change happens if that is good or bad thing. No one besides the people who study these things should be much attention to gut microbiomes. We just don't have enough information to let this be an influence on decision making.

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eagsalazar2 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Your comment seems a little flippant honestly. I know what "disrupted" is, trust me. I developed a gluten sensitivity about 10 years ago but only figured it out 5 years ago. "Healthy" is "feels healthy" and "doesn't die young", that is pretty simple.

It sounds like you think this is about hypothetical and marginal health benefits but people have very acute and immediate physical (and cognitive) issues because of disrupted gut biome that are objectively improved by cutting out, in particular, gluten. This isn't just some weird obession.

	▲	array_key_first 8 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Gluten intolerance is a real thing but I don't think that necessarily means that your gut flora is damaged or whatever. Plenty of people are lactose intolerant, and their gut flora is fine, they're just lactose intolerant. I don't think you could solve gluten intolerance but just improving your gut microbiome, so they're probably not related.

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rpmisms 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

We know that it's really important to neurological function, which is enough reason to be careful.

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tptacek an hour ago | parent [-]

By itself, it's simply an argument that proves too much. Anything you ingest impacts your gut flora. There can be gut microbiome hypos about glyphosate! But you have to actually have them; you can't stop at "it impacts gut flora".

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rpmisms 43 minutes ago | parent [-]

Well, I didn't intend that as a conversation-ender, but it is true. This particular substance inhibits a particular function of certain gut flora that seems important. I think it's safe to call that significant.

	▲	tptacek 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		What "particular function" is that? If it's "the part that influences neurological function", you don't have a complete argument. If you can't be specific about this, your argument falls apart, because almost everything we eat potentially "inhibits" (or accelerates) different areas of our gut flora.

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pfdietz 22 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Changing your diet disrupts the gut biome. When I started eating bran flakes it massively disrupted my gut biome. Should I be alarmed? Or are you slipping a double standard in there, perhaps from the naturalistic fallacy?

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jandrewrogers 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

AFAIK the preponderance of the evidence is that most "gluten sensitivity" is actually just a FODMAP sensitivity, which also interacts with the gut biome.

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AnimalMuppet 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Off topic, but can someone ELI5 (or at least ELI20) what the deal is with FODMAP? I keep hearing about it, but I don't understand it at all.

	▲	jml7c5 an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The Wikipedia page for it is pretty good. Basically, there are a number of short-chain carbohydrates that tend to pass through the small intestine (where nutrients are digested and absorbed into the bloodstream) and reach the large intestine (where water is removed). Bacteria in the large intestine eat these nutrients (fermentation). In some people, this causes intestinal distress. (Bloating, gas, discomfort, watery stool, etc.) It's not clear why this only affects some people. You hear a lot about it because a large subset of people have discovered that a low-FODMAP diet relieves their torment of intestinal distress.
	▲	saxonww an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		FODMAP stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols. FODMAPs generate gas as side effect of being fermented in the gut. Most people just pass this gas, but for some people, usually people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), it can be very uncomfortable and amplify their other IBS problems. People who are suffering from pain and bloating with no obvious cause may be advised to go on a low-FODMAP diet for a few weeks to see if their symptoms go away.
	▲	tptacek 38 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		We just had a story about de-farting beans on the front page. The FODMAPs are (among other things) the bean farts.

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array_key_first 11 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

People who have gluten allergies have a legitimate disease, typically celiac disease.

Being tired after eating bread or whatever is not a gluten allergy, that's just how food works. A lot of people claim to have gluten allergies but no, you would know for sure if you had a gluten allergy.