Roundup Herbicide Ingredient Connected To Epidemic Levels of Chronic Kidney Disease

A study conducted by Duke University researchers suggests that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, may be a potential cause of the mysterious kidney disease CKDu that has affected rural communities in Sri Lanka and similar regions around the world. The findings have been published in Environmental Science and Technology Letters. Phys.Org reports: Roundup is a glyphosate-based herbicide used to control weeds and other pests. Because it is supposed to break down in the environment within a few days to weeks, its use is relatively under-regulated by most public health agencies. But when glyphosate encounters certain trace metal ions that make water hard -- like magnesium and calcium -- glyphosate-metal ion complexes can form. Those complexes can persist up to seven years in water and 22 years in soil. In certain agricultural areas of Sri Lanka, the high, dry climate combined with its geological formations creates the perfect conditions for hard water. It is also in these regions that CKDu has reached epidemic levels, with as many as 10% of children aged 5-11 years exhibiting signs of early onset kidney damage. [Nishad Jayasundara, the Juli Plant Grainger Assistant Professor of Global Environmental Health at Duke] believed that glyphosate may play a role in CKDu incidence because of the region's hard water, even though Sri Lanka has banned use of the herbicide. To test his hypothesis, Jayasundara teamed up with environmental chemist Lee Ferguson, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke and his Ph.D. student Jake Ulrich. In collaboration with Mangala De Silva, a professor at the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka, the Duke team sampled more than 200 wells across four regions in Sri Lanka. Ferguson's lab at Duke employs high-resolution and tandem mass spectrometry to identify contaminants -- even the barest trace of them -- by their molecular weights. It's a highly sensitive method of identification and quantitation that allows a broad view into the pollutants present in a water system. Through this technique, the researchers found significantly higher levels of the herbicide in 44% of wells within the affected areas versus just 8% of those outside it. "We really focused on drinking water here, but it's possible there are other important routes of exposure -- direct contact from agricultural workers spraying the pesticide, or perhaps food or dust," said Ferguson. "I'd like to see increased study with more emphasis looking at the links among these exposure routes. It still seems like there might be things we're missing." To this point, Ulrich also found elevated levels of fluoride and vanadium -- both of which are linked to kidney damage -- in the drinking water of most all of the communities with high incidence of CKDu. The researchers agree that more attention must be paid to the potential contributions each of these contaminants is playing, either individually or in concert with others. But given the reasoning for their glyphosate-based hypothesis going into the study and the herbicide's high levels of use worldwide, they also believe these results should serve as a serious warning when considering risk of exposure to glyphosate.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.