This headline explains my general aversion to "chemicals". This, despite the fact that everything is a chemical and that we are all little chemical machines.<p>The human physiology is unfathomably complex and the advent of synthetic chemistry has meant that we are now exposed to new molecules which have arisen at a rate tens, hundreds of thousands of years too early for our bodies to evolve to accommodate for them. Our exposure to these chemicals is also incredibly opaque: even eating "clean" by eating fruit and veg exposes us to a multitude of chemicals that come along the pipeline including fertilisers, pesticides and preservatives.<p>Nature is exquisitely sensitive to chemistry - I recall reading that natural systems have evolved to exploit and dispatch behaviour based on the isotopic composition of carbon-based molecules: naturally synthesised molecules also have a different isotopic profile to artificially synthesised molecules. For the record, Carbon-13 represents ~1% of the natural isotopic abundance.<p>If something as granular as the isotopic distribution of elements is important to physiological systems, how can we be so complacent as to constantly pile chemicals into every aspect of our lives?<p>Businesses will wantonly and irresponsibly use any method to increase their bottom lines and it falls to regulators to moderate this behaviour. As an example, I recall McDonald's doping their chip oil with a known toxic organic chemical to lower the rate of thermal decomposition of their oil. This is something they could as easily avoid by replacing their oil more often, but this is costly: they instead defer this cost onto our health by exposing us to unnecessarily dangerous chemicals.<p>In my opinion the FDA's (or indeed global regulators') thresholds for the use of chemicals is not stringent enough - humans are living longer, how do we know that prolonged exposure to any of these individual chemicals (let alone the cocktail of all of them) over a 50-100 year period are worth the risk?<p>For another anecdote of irresponsible chemical usage - the onset of lung cancer through smoking underwent a stepwise increase after the tobacco industry started using phosphate fertilisers to increase their crop yield: a side effect of the fertilisers was to enrich the soil in radium which would decay down to Pollonium-210, an alpha source of Russian-assassination fame. Studies have been done on characterising the sievert profile of tobacco leaves, highlighting the risk of this but no action on the tobacco industry has been taken to mitigate this.
From conclusion:
<i>Hence, rather than searching for other chemical alternatives, promotion and development of traditional self-sustainable, nature-based agricultural practices would be the right approach to feed this world.</i><p>Living off organic produce is not possible (at least in India as of now). The farmers do not earn much and have debts to pay-off. The only way they know of saving crops is using subsidised fertilizers provided by the government. Over the years indiscriminate use of pesticides has increased. In fact availability of Urea was a poll issue in National Election in some parts of India. [1]<p>[1] <a href="http://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/neem-coated-urea-why-is-narendra-modi-govt-waiting-for-5-years-to-make-india-self-sufficient-in-fertilisers/454215/" rel="nofollow">http://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/neem-coated-urea-why...</a>
...and 36 of them are in use within the United States.<p>Emphasis below on chlorpyrifos which Trump's EPA took off the EPA's banned list. EPA bulletin written before Trump took office:<p>"...Thirty-six of them [organophosphates] are presently registered for use in the United States, and all can potentially cause acute and subacute toxicity. Organophosphates are used in agriculture,
homes, gardens and veterinary practices; however, in the past decade, several notable OPs have been discontinued for use, including parathion, which is no longer registered for any use, and chlorpyrifos, which is no longer registered for home use. ..."<p><a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/documents/rmpp_6thed_ch5_organophosphates.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/documents/rmpp_6t...</a>
The mechanism they pinpointed is illustrated in "Figure 7":<p><i>OPs (star) enter the human digestive system via food and are metabolized into acetic acid (trapezoid) by the gut microbiota (oval). Subsequently, acetic acid was absorbed by the intestinal cells and the majority of them were transported to the liver through the periportal vein. Eventually, acetic acid was converted into glucose (hexagon) by gluconeogenesis in the intestine and liver and thus accounts for glucose intolerance.</i><p>So the pesticide is being eventually converted into glucose, which has the same effect as if you were eating too much sugar/carbs.
Farmers working with Sheep Dip chemicals have been studied;<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2078460/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2078460/</a><p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3366364/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3366364/</a><p><a href="http://www.fwi.co.uk/livestock/op-sheep-dip-illness-new-details-emerge.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.fwi.co.uk/livestock/op-sheep-dip-illness-new-deta...</a><p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11561630/That-sheep-dip-poisoning-disaster-they-tried-to-keep-secret.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11561630/That-sheep-dip-p...</a><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/20/revealed-government-knew-of-farm-poisoning-risk-but-failed-to-act" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/20/revealed...</a><p>There is also 'Genetic variation in susceptibility to chronic effects of organophosphate
exposure' <a href="http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr408.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr408.pdf</a><p>Gulf War Syndrome has also been studied as a possible effect of close range exposure to organophosphates in pesticides and inset repellents.
to summarize, crop pesticides are converted to glucose internally, causing diabetes.<p>a pretty big plot-twist for a delirious problem in global health, and a find that resembles a 21st century silent-spring.
The original title of the article: "Gut microbial degradation of organophosphate insecticides-induces glucose intolerance via gluconeogenesis"<p>Why is the title in HN edited to make this about "India"? Is this finding not applicable to people elsewhere? or id other parts of the world stop using organophosphates?
I wonder if the people in India most likely to be exposed to organophosphates in India are also the people most likely to be living almost entirely off of rice. Did the study do a sufficiently good job eliminating obvious confounding factors?
It's not just diabetes - exposure to pesticides increases risk of suicide, lymphoma, ALS. congenital anomalies and reduces fertility. There is a solid case in choosing organic foods. See summary of risks here <a href="http://outcomereference.com/causes/77" rel="nofollow">http://outcomereference.com/causes/77</a>
I was always suspicious of the diet/lifestyle explanation for diabetes. It's conveniently unfalsifiable, and it's obnoxiously paternalistic and moralizing.