What Is Roundup?

Roundup is a popular herbicide available in the United States and many countries for home and commercial use to kill and control weeds. Roundup is typically used on crops whether farmed or home grown and was introduced to the market in 1947 by the corporation Monsanto. It is popular due to its efficacy on broadleaf plants and grasses that compete with crops. The main ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate, which has now been linked to cancers including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

What is Glyphosate?

Glyphosate is a popular herbicide used in Roundup and other products. Glyphosate is a broadleaf and grass broad-spectrum herbicide. Glyphosate is absorbed by the plants leafs and stems but not the roots, and inhibits the production of necessary amino acids in the weed. Once a plant is sprayed with glyphosate the chemical will be absorbed and moved throughout the plant resulting in systemic failure to produce these amino acids. The plant stops growing and later dies.

Does Roundup Cause Cancer?

Roundup has been linked with cancers including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In 1985 the EPA classified the main chemical in Roundup, glyphosate, as possibly carcinogenic, the state of California has added glyphosate to it’s list of cancer causing agents, and the World Health Organizations (WHO) body known as the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded in 2015 that glyphosate was a probable cause of cancer.

Roundup and other herbicides containing glyphosate work by disturbing basic processes in plants. The specific enzyme production that is arrested by the presence of glyphosate is in plants but not mammals, which has led companies such as Monsanto to declare the product must be safe for humans. Unfortunately the chemical also affects bacteria, including beneficial bacteria living in the intestinal tract of humans and other animals, any chemical affecting gut bacteria can affect what the total presence of bacteria in the gut is. Physicians and researchers are still learning the full effects of gut bacteria on human health, but it is well known that certain changes to gut bacteria can have huge implications for health outcomes.

What Types of Cancer Might Roundup and Glyphosate Cause?

Roundup is associated with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL).

What Products Use Glyphosate?

Glyphosate is used in many products including:

• Monsanto Roundup
• Dow Accord
• DuPont Abundit
• Cenex Silhouette
• Helena Rattler
• Loveland Mirage
• Riverside Jury
• Sygenta Touchdown