Food Allergies Linked To Pesticides In Tap Water

As hard as it may be to believe, even 100 years ago, allergies were almost unknown among humans. An early American historian of medicine noted that in his grand total of 40 years of practice he had only see five cases of hay fever, ever. Allergy-like conditions such as contact dermatitis, atopic dermatitis, and asthma were also rare, but that is hardly the case today.

Asthma was also once a rare condition. Today in the United States, nearly 7 million children and 16 million adults suffer from asthma. According to the World Health Organization, worldwide nearly 300 million people suffer from asthma, which also causes as many as 250,000 deaths each year.

What has caused this plague of allergy and allergy-like diseases? One often overlooked culprit is drinking water, contaminated by agricultural runoff containing pesticides such as the organophosphates and RoundUp.

Pervasive Poisoning by Organophosphates

Organophosphates, as their name suggests, are chemical compounds that link phosphoric acid and an organic, carbon-based compound. All organophosphates are nerve agents, tying up an enzyme that breaks down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, causing insects to twitch, seize, and die of paralysis.

The first mass-produced organophosphates were the nerve gases Sarin, Tabun, Soman, and VX. Although some nations, notably Syria, are believed to stock nerve gases even today, these deadly chemicals were banned by international treaty after the world wars.

After World War II, chemical manufacturers began to look for new products to make with the old processes that were once used to make nerve gas. In the 1950's and 1960's, farmers first in the United States and then around the world began to use diazinon, fenthion, ethion, malathion, parathion, chlorpyriflos, and dichlorvos. Like the nerve gases that came before them, organophospate pesticides caused so much damage that they have been largely phased out, at least in North America and in the European Union. Both American and European companies still sell them in other parts of the world.

The problem with parathion and similar products is that they leached out of the soil and into the water table. Even where organophosphates were banned 20 years ago, the chemicals can still be found both in produce grown in contaminated soils and in drinking water.

Organophosphate Poisoning and Allergy

As nerve toxins, organophosphates are well known as causes of nerve and brain damage. But organophosphates also have proven toxic effects on the immune system.

• Studies at the Institute of Environmental Toxicology in Japan have found that exposure to parathion or methoxychlor increases allergic reactions to dust mites, which also trigger the skin condition rosacea.

• Studies at the National University of Costa Rica found that Costa Rican women exposed to organophosphate pesticides were up to 7 times more likely to experience wheezing.

• Studies at the Jimma Institute of Health Sciences in Ethiopia found that when villagers left their organic subsistence farms and moved into the cities where organophosphate pesticides such as malathion were commonly used, allergies, wheezing, and skin rashes such as eczema became up to 3 times more common.

Although there are other issues with adding chlorine and fluoride to drinking water, modern treated water has lower levels of organophosphates than untreated water, such as the well water available even in North America in rural areas. Municipal water supplies, however, retain organophosphates for up to 72 hours even after treatment, so safe drinking water requires a savvy purification plant operator. 

RoundUp, Drinking Water, And Allergies

Another potential culprit in the allergy epidemic is drinking water contaminated by the ubiquitous agricultural chemical RoundUp, which is made by Monsanto.

The herbicide RoundUp consists of a tiny amount of a chemical called glyphosate in a large amount of water and a surfactant (sudsing agent) to distribute the glyphosate through the spray.

Glyphosate kills many (but not all) kinds of plants on contact, conveniently eliminating the need to plow or weed fields after use. Since the 1990's, an increasing number of crops have been genetically engineered to resist RoundUp, so farmers can spray for weeds without killing their crops.

Despite what millions of posts on Facebook and thousands of critical articles tell us, glyphosphate is not especially toxic. This chemical is, however, allergenic, especially in infants and small children. Skin rashes and breakouts have occurred when infants are bathed in water contaminated by RoundUp, and a condition called vasculitis (which is a breakdown of blood vessels) has occurred in adults exposed to glyphosphate.

RoundUp food allergies, however, occur through a more indirect process. It is not the pesticide itself that is the problem in these cases. It is the genetically modified food organisms that have been created for use in symbiosis with the pesticide. The problem seems to be most acute with soy products.

Genetically modified soy bean seems to include some genes that create proteins that aggravate allergies in people. However, it is not especially difficult to avoid this problem. Here's how:

• If you don't eat soy products, you won't get any soy allergies.
• If your diet contains lots of probiotic, fermented foods (such as miso, tempeh, sauerkraut, and yogurt), the bacteria in your gut may protect your body from the effects of GMO soy.
• If you avoid eating sugary foods, your body may produce (or require) less insulin, leaving the enzymes the liver normally uses to reprocess insulin free to break down allergenic chemicals in genetically modified soy.

Understanding the science of RoundUp-related soy allergies is hard, but avoiding the allergies is fairly simple, unless you are vegetarian or vegan and rely heavily on soy. Since nearly all soy products in the USA and Canada are derived from GMO soybeans that were sprayed with RoundUp, don't eat them, unless they are certified organic. And if you live in an area where soybeans are raised, be sure you drink bottled water that is delivered to your home in glass bottles.

What About Dichlorophenols?

Neither organophosphates nor RoundUp, however, is the best known chemical contaminant of drinking water that may be linked to food allergies. That dubious distinction is awarded to a group of chemicals known as the dichlorophenols, which includes the herbicide 2,4-D.

Dichlorophenols are not, as has been reported in the news, used to kill bacteria. They are used to kill weeds. They happen also to kill the friendly, probiotic bacteria in the human digestive tract, which play such an important role in the human digestive tract that we have not even begun to understand the full extent of it. When probiotic bacteria die, food allergens may survive digestion and aggravate asthma and eczema.

So why not make an effort to eliminate dichlorophenols from your family's drinking water? The reason is simple. Dichlorophenols are found in the environment, but they break down quickly. Microbes in the soil and in lakes, streams, and ponds can break down dichlorophenols in a matter of days.

Just about the only way to get drinking water that is contaminated by dichlorophenols is to drink water from a well near a field where 2,4-D is used. If you aren't in farming country, this is not likely to be a problem. But no matter where you live, it is always a good idea to obtain the cleanest drinking water you can find, and to make sure your diet includes probiotic, live foods.