STUDY ANALYSIS: Glyphosate and Muscle Wastage

A news study links glyphosate exposure to reductions in physical strength among the general population

Glyphosate is a nasty, nasty chemical that I’ve written about a lot.

For INFOWARS, I’ve written about how glyphosate exposure might be linked to the massive increase in autism cases in recent years.

I also wrote a primer for INFOWARS where I laid out the trouble with glyphosate in depth. It isn’t just that glyphosate is awful for you:

It’s awful and it’s everywhere. Since 1974, it’s estimated that at least 1.6 billion kg of glyphosate has been used in the US alone, or roughly 20% of the total global usage of the chemical. Glyphosate is sprayed on everything from lawns to soybeans, wheat and corn. Bayer, good corporation that it is, is constantly looking to maximise its profits by finding new uses for the chemical, and so now farmers are using glyphosate as a dessicant, to dry out crops for harvest. That means a double-dose of this nasty chemical: one during planting, and another during harvesting, much closer to consumption. More glyphosate than ever is getting into our environment and our food.

Glyphosate has been linked to cancer, fertility issues, gut dysfunction, neurological damage and other issues in humans, as well as terrible effects on wildlife and plants.

A new study suggests glyphosate exposure might be linked to muscle wastage and declines in muscular strength at a population level. I’d not seen studies tying the chemical to declines in lean muscle mass and strength before, but it seems there’s actually a pretty extensive literature on the adverse changes glyphosate causes to muscle tissue in animals.

The study authors note, in the introduction, that there’s been an observed decline in group strength in the past few decades among middle-aged Europeans and North Americans, and that this decline can’t be attributed simply to lifestyle factors. They note that studies have already shown that pollution and environmental toxins could be a key factor in functional aging and muscular health, and that animal studies have shown a variety of negative alterations to muscle tissue and function as a result of glyphosate exposure.

Our hypothesis is supported by experimental evidence indicating that glyphosate-based herbicide (GBH) exposure during development causes muscle fibrosis and decreases levels of neuromuscular junctions in the soleus muscle of mouse pups (Barbosa et al., 2022). Additionally, chronic exposure to elevated levels of GBH in rats has been associated with the suppression of muscle levels and contractile strength (Nozdrenko et al., 2021). Furthermore, studies conducted on aquatic animals, commonly used in ecotoxicological research and considered “intermediate” in relation to potential effects on human exposures (Lacroix and Kurrasch, 2023), have shown alterations in muscular energy reserve (Menéndez-Helman et al., 2015), disruptions in normal muscle protein metabolism (dos Santos dosSantos Teixeira et al., 2018), increased lipid peroxidation (Sinhorin et al., 2014; dos Santos dosSantos Teixeira et al., 2018), and reduced acetylcholinesterase activity in the skeletal muscle (Modesto and Martinez, 2010; dos Santos dosSantos Teixeira et al., 2018) of populations exposed to glyphosate.

The researchers took data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) for adults aged 20 years and over, for the years 2013-2014 and 2015-2016. 2132 participants were selected for whom there was data about glyphosate concentrations in urine; grip strength, measured using a dynamometer; and other data relating to “functional limitations,” meaning data on, for example, stair-climbing power.

A figure from the study