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Answers

Question

In what ways can GMO products benefit people's health?

Submitted by: Sergio Avila


Answer

Expert response from Community Manager

Moderator for GMOAnswers.com

Friday, 25/01/2019 21:52

GM crops like high oleic soybeans provide higher levels of oxidative stability. These soybeans contain 20 percent less saturated fat than commodity soybean oil and extend the shelf life for packaged food products, eliminating the need for artificial preservatives. You can learn more about the high oleic soybean on DuPont Pioneer’s website here.

 

In this response, Connie Diekman, RD, discussed two non-commercial products that may one day provide significant health benefits:

 

"Since GMO technology can boost crop yield that can be viewed as a health benefit but in terms of direct health benefits the health benefits of these crops lies in the traditional nutrition that they contain. GM crops do not differ in nutritional or health benefits from non-GM crops so including them in your eating plan can help your overall nutrition.

 

There are two products that would provide real health benefits, one is Golden Rice, a rice that is fortified with vitamin A, and the other is SDA oil. SDA is an oil that will allow plant-based omega-3 fatty acids in the oil to be available to the body for use more efficiently.

 

So when you ask ‘How do GMOS’ benefit Health’ the answer is a bit tricky but the bottom-line is that all of the plants that are GM provide nutritional benefits and that certainly benefits health.”

In addition to benefiting your health, GM crops also benefit your wallet. In this response, Dr. Stuart Smyth discusses how GM crops help to stabilize/reduce food prices:

“As farmers produce higher yield, this helps keep prices stable and any price increase would be lower than the case where there was a shortage of any commodity. In an assessment I led a few years ago (Smyth, Kerr and Phillips, 2015), we found that the level of benefits to consumers varied from a five percent at the low end, to 53 percent. On average, consumers experience about 20 percent of the benefits from GM crops in the form of lower food prices.”

If you are looking for more information, be sure to check out this response about the benefit of GMOs on society. 

 

From environmental sustainability to nutritional benefits, we’ve outlined 5 Ways GMOs benefit society’s health here

 

We hope this answers your question.