Secret Ingredients: Who Knows What's in Your Food?

Nicole, Wendee

doi:10.1289/ehp.121-a126

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 19 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This also includes cosmetics, drugs (including veterinary products), disinfectant products, and even food additives. In the United States, additives in food products are covered and regulated by the Food Additives Amendment passed by Congress in 1958 ( 63 ). This encompasses the status of substances that are “generally recognized as safe,” so they can be added to food without a review of safety by the Food and Drug Administration.…”

Section: Exposures To Adjuvants Have Health Effects On Human Populatimentioning

confidence: 99%

Ignoring Adjuvant Toxicity Falsifies the Safety Profile of Commercial Pesticides

Mesnage

Antoniou

2018

Front. Public Health

229

126

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Commercial formulations of pesticides are invariably not single ingredients. Instead they are cocktails of chemicals, composed of a designated pesticidal “active principle” and “other ingredients,” with the latter collectively also known as “adjuvants.” These include surfactants, antifoaming agents, dyes, etc. Some adjuvants are added to influence the absorption and stability of the active principle and thus promote its pesticidal action. Currently, the health risk assessment of pesticides in the European Union and in the United States focuses almost exclusively on the stated active principle. Nonetheless, adjuvants can also be toxic in their own right with numerous negative health effects having been reported in humans and on the environment. Despite the known toxicity of adjuvants, they are regulated differently from active principles, with their toxic effects being generally ignored. Adjuvants are not subject to an acceptable daily intake, and they are not included in the health risk assessment of dietary exposures to pesticide residues. Here, we illustrate this gap in risk assessment by reference to glyphosate, the most used pesticide active ingredient. We also investigate the case of neonicotinoid insecticides, which are strongly suspected to be involved in bee and bumblebee colony collapse disorder. Authors of studies sometimes use the name of the active principle (for example glyphosate) when they are testing a commercial formulation containing multiple (active principle plus adjuvant) ingredients. This results in confusion in the scientific literature and within regulatory circles and leads to a misrepresentation of the safety profile of commercial pesticides. Urgent action is needed to lift the veil on the presence of adjuvants in food and human bodily fluids, as well as in the environment (such as in air, water, and soil) and to characterize their toxicological properties. This must be accompanied by regulatory precautionary measures to protect the environment and general human population from some toxic adjuvants that are currently missing from risk assessments.

show abstract

Section: Exposures To Adjuvants Have Health Effects On Human Populatimentioning

confidence: 99%

Ignoring Adjuvant Toxicity Falsifies the Safety Profile of Commercial Pesticides

Mesnage

Antoniou

2018

Front. Public Health

229

126

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The impact of diet on microbiota was thoroughly described by O'Keefe et al, in which a diet exchange between different populations resulted in remarkable changes in microbiota (60). It is also essential to mention the impact of consuming processed foods, as nitrate consumption, rich in processed food, can lead to the formation of N-nitroso compounds by the gut microbiota, some of which are carcinogenic (61,62).…”

Section: Gut Microbiota and Colorectal Cancermentioning

confidence: 99%

Modulation of tumor environment in colorectal cancer – could gut microbiota be a key player?

Mendes

Vicente²,

Vitorino³

et al. 2022

Front. Gastroenterol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The treatment paradigm of neoplastic diseases has dramatically shifted with the introduction of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI). They induce a durable response in a wide variety of solid tumors, but this response depends on the infiltration of lymphocytes capable of recognizing and killing tumor cells. The primary predictor of intrinsic immune resistance to ICIs is the absence of lymphocytes in the tumor, the so-called “cold tumors”. Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains one of the most common and challenging cancer, but it is not traditionally considered a highly immunogenic tumor. In fact, immunotherapy showed a remarkable antitumoral activity only on a small subset of CRC patients – the ones with microsatellite instability-high/deficient DNA mismatch repair (MSI-H/dMMR). Most CRCs display a molecular microsatellite stability/proficient DNA mismatch repair (MSS/pMMR) profile, so strategies to improve tumor immunogenicity are crucial. Therefore, ongoing studies investigate new approaches to convert “cold” to “hot” tumors in MSS/pMMR CRCs. In addition, it has been described that gut microbiota influences tumor development and the host immune response. Hence, the microbiota may modulate the immune response, becoming a promising biomarker to identify patients who will benefit from ICIs. Future data will help to better understand microbiota mechanisms and their role in ICI efficacy. Precision medicine in cancer treatment could involve modulation of the microbiota through different strategies to improve tumor immunogenicity. In this review, we aim to present the potential relationship between gut microbiota and the modulation of the immune system and the hypothetical implications in CRC treatment, namely ICIs.

show abstract

“…It is well known that nitrite and nitrate consumption, rich in processed meats, can lead to the formation of N-nitroso compounds by gut microbes, some of which are carcinogenic [ 73 ]. The health and regulatory issues related to the addition of food ingredients are too vast to cover in this review and have been covered elsewhere [ 74 ]; nevertheless, it is worthwhile to consider a few examples of food additives that modulate the gut microbiome and the host inflammatory status, factors associated with CRC development [ 73 ]. Monosodium glutamate is an additive used to enhance the flavor of savory foods able to induce obesity and diabetes.…”

Section: Lifestyle Diet and Microbiota In The Early Onset Of Crcmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gut Microbiota Manipulation as a Tool for Colorectal Cancer Management: Recent Advances in Its Use for Therapeutic Purposes

Perillo

Amoroso

Strati

et al. 2020

IJMS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a multifaceted disease influenced by both environmental and genetic factors. A large body of literature has demonstrated the role of gut microbes in promoting inflammatory responses, creating a suitable microenvironment for the development of skewed interactions between the host and the gut microbiota and cancer initiation. Even if surgery is the primary therapeutic strategy, patients with advanced disease or cancer recurrence after surgery remain difficult to cure. Therefore, the gut microbiota has been proposed as a novel therapeutic target in light of recent promising data in which it seems to modulate the response to cancer immunotherapy. The use of microbe-targeted therapies, including antibiotics, prebiotics, live biotherapeutics, and fecal microbiota transplantation, is therefore considered to support current therapies in CRC management. In this review, we will discuss the importance of host−microbe interactions in CRC and how promoting homeostatic immune responses through microbe-targeted therapies may be useful in preventing/treating CRC development.

show abstract

Secret Ingredients: Who Knows What's in Your Food?

Cited by 8 publications

References 19 publications

Ignoring Adjuvant Toxicity Falsifies the Safety Profile of Commercial Pesticides

Ignoring Adjuvant Toxicity Falsifies the Safety Profile of Commercial Pesticides

Modulation of tumor environment in colorectal cancer – could gut microbiota be a key player?

Gut Microbiota Manipulation as a Tool for Colorectal Cancer Management: Recent Advances in Its Use for Therapeutic Purposes

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About