Touted benefits of GMOs by proponents of GMOs include higher nutritional yields, less expensive food, food with medicinal benefits, and disease or insect resistant crops that require less herbicide or pesticide.
Nutritional Enhancement
There are strong doubts concerning the claim by GMO proponents that GMOs have either higher nutritional yield compared to non-GMOs or do not vary substantially in their level of nutrition. Genetic engineering has been used to increase the amounts of specific vitamins and nutrients in foods. This tactic, called nutritional enhancement, has been used to produce GM golden rice. This rice comes from a white rice crop inserted with the vitamin A gene from a daffodil plant. The vitamin level of the rice is beneficial in countries where there is a prevalent vitamin A deficiency.
A limited number of GMOs have enhanced nutritional content. Golden rice is currently the main nutritionally enhanced GM crop, although carrots have been created with more antioxidants, and bananas have been created with bacterial or rotavirus antigens. Researchers are currently focusing on prominent health problems like iron deficiency and the removal of proteins in foods that cause allergies.
One must be careful with haphazard nutritional manipulation of foods because not all of us will benefit from the added nutrition. The potential problems with GM nutrition enhancement include, but are not limited to:
-Nutritional toxicities can develop when one consumes foods with unnaturally enhanced nutritional content. Vitamin A toxicity results in a form of liver inflammation and enlargement called hepatitis. Even the water soluble nutrients such as vitamins B1 (thiamin), B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin), B5 (pantothenic acid) and B6 (pyridoxine) can result in toxicity when consumed in excess or imbalanced proportions.
-GMOs contain various anti-nutrients that can bind to certain nutritional factors (i.e., phytates) that render them non-absorbable. In other words, we are not what we eat, but what we absorb from what we eat. The concept of ?nutritional equivalence,? a term used by the GMO scientists to describe how GMOs? nutritional content matches up with their non-GMO counterparts, is false. GMOs are not nutritionally equivalent to non-GMO foods, as described elsewhere in this book.
-Consuming nutrients not based upon one?s individualized needs can cause malabsorption of other nutrients because of competition among nutritional compounds. Malabsorption means that needed nutrition may not be fully absorbed in the body.
Personalized nutrition based on the unique needs of the individual can go a long way toward preventing and treating a wide variety of health problems. Unreliable nutritional supplementation, such as what may occur with GM nutrition enhancement, may cause more harm than good.
Dr. Michael Wald, author of the new book about GMO dangers, Frankenfoods - Controversy, Lies & Your Health available NOW on Amazon.com and here: http://bit.ly/1jaRnOL, offers a riveting perspective of the GMO predicament exploring governmental and industry cover-ups, health dangers, environmental threats, GMO-free food plans and recipes, nutritional supplements and other practical solutions. Dr. Wald declares, "The GMO dilemma is here to stay and anyone interested in protecting their health and that of their loved ones, friends and the planet, must educate themselves and take political and personal action right now!" Considering the importance of this information Dr. Wald asks that you re-tweet his GMO links and follow him on Twitter - @DrMichaelWald. Thank you.