There is always something new to learn and sometimes it is good news and sometime it isn’t. I will start with the bad news:

Glyphosate Found in California Wines Including Organic 

10 wines were tested, both conventional and organic. While the conventional wines had 28 times higher the levels than the organic wine, glyphosate was still found in all of them. This is confusing for me because glyphosate (or Round-Up) is an herbicide, which means it kill plants. The question I have is when does it get into the wine? It can’t be through the air so it can land on the plant (that was not supposed to be sprayed) because that would damage the plant.

Apparently, it’s the water. Glyphosate is ending up in water table. It is assumed that this is occurring because animals fed GM0 Round-Up Ready corn and soy are excreting it in their manure and this seeps into the soil, ending up in the water table. Round -Up Ready corn and soy are genetically modified to allow them to be impervious to Round-Up allowing farmers to spray glyphosate as much as they want, without having to worry about killing their crops. This puts the glyphosate on all the GMO-crops.

Synthetic chemicals like glyphosate takes years to break down so it can easily move from a plant through an animal and be pooped out to reside in the soil or water table.

The issue with glyphosate for us is the affect on our intestinal health. Glyphosate kills the plant by disrupting the shikimate pathway, which is needed for the production of amino acids needed for plant growth. If a plant can’t grow, it dies. We do not have a shikimate pathway but our good gut bacteria do. This means that glyphosate, should we ingest it, could interfere with our gut bacteria levels and how they function.

What is scary about this story, is that even if we avoid GMO-foods, our environment is being polluted and we may be ingesting glyphosate whether we want to or not. This means we have to be even more supportive of our gut. And that means more probiotics, fermented foods and prebiotic foods.

One a happier note, at least for coffee-lovers:

Coffee Has Been Determined To Be Prebiotic (Thank you, Sandra For Posting This In Healthy Gut).

It also has antimicrobial properties to help protect against pathogenic bacteria and contains significant amounts of antioxidants. It has been discovered that sugar in coffee enhances its antioxidant levels and antimicrobial properties. Adding milk or cream, which contains the prebiotic GOS,  along with the coffee itself, decreases e coli and clostridium strains and increases beneficial bifidobacteria strains in the colon.

Now this is based on mice studies so do not get too excited. But, if drinking a coffee makes you have a good poop, it is not your imagination.

Maybe after you have a glass of wine, you should drink a coffee. Just kidding as I am sure that is not a good combo but many people do this. Have a nice meal with wine, then have a coffee after. Hmmm…

And after drinking all this the wine and coffee, maybe have some yogurt or sauerkraut to help your liver detox out the caffeine and alcohol – I said maybe – we are not there yet but someday…

Gut Bacteria Help Liver Remove Toxins

This is really cool. So, you may or may not know that gut bacteria controls 95% of gene expression. When it comes to DNA, it is not the genes you have that affects you so much, but more how the genes express themselves. And what has been learned about gut bacteria is that they can regulate how your genes inside your body can express themselves and affect body function.

For example, researchers have found that good gut bacteria can modify gene expression of the liver to help improve the liver’s ability to remove toxins.

On the flip side, bad bacteria can alter gene expression and impede detoxification. The negative effect on the liver was caused by LPS (lipopolysaccharide) a toxin produced by pathogenic bacteria. Researchers are in the process of studying probiotics as potential supplements to help the liver.

Now I am wondering if the prebiotics that are present in both wine and coffee are there to help the liver remove the negative aspects of both by promoting the growth of good gut bacteria levels in the gut. Just something to think about.

Whatever the case, I have always said that we should support the gut when doing liver work and support the liver when doing gut work and the picture is starting to become clear as to why we should.

References:

  1. The Site of the Inhibition of the Shikimate Pathway by Glyphosate I. INHIBITION BY GLYPHOSATE OF PHENYLPROPANOID SYNTHESIS IN BUCKWHEAT (FAGOPYRUM ESCULENTUM MOENCH) 1, 2 Heike Holländer et al, Plant Physiol. 1980 Nov; 66(5): 823–829.
  2. Influence of coffee (Coffea arabica) and galacto-oligosaccharide consumption on intestinal microbiota and the host responses Tatsuya Nakayama1 et al, International Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Research Institute for Microbial Diseases,  May 2013
  3. Revalorization of coffee by-products. Prebiotic, antimicrobial and antioxidant properties, Ana Jiménez-Zamora et al, LWT- Food Science and Technology 164(1) · April 2015

  4. Intestinal microbiota regulate xenobiotic metabolism in the liver. Björkholm, B et al, PLoS One. 2009 Sep 9;4(9)

  5. Effect of lipopolysaccharide on the xenobiotic-induced expression and activity of hepatic cytochrome P450 in mice, Moriya, N et al, Biol Pharm Bull. 2012;35(4):473-80.