Human health - cancer
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.
Does Glyphosate cause cancer?
Glyphosate does not cause cancer.
Over the last 25+ years, leading authorities who have evaluated hundreds of comprehensive toxicology studies and other studies from peer-reviewed journals and have concluded that glyphosate does not cause cancer. David Saltmiras, Science Fellow, Toxicology Manager of the Novel Chemistry and Microbials Product Platform, Monsanto Company, explains, “What I find quite compelling is that over the years, the volume of toxicology studies on glyphosate has grown considerably and has increased confidence in the repeated scientific conclusions on this topic.” He adds, “Between 1981 and 2009, glyphosate was tested in at least thirteen long-term/carcinogenicity studies, eight in rats and five in mice, all of which were evaluated by independent experts, who all concluded that glyphosate does not cause cancer.”
Since 1993, scientists from U.S. government agencies including the National Cancer Institute, in collaboration with university researchers, have studied the health impacts of farming through the Agricultural Health Study. In late 2017, these scientists published an updated look at the relationship between glyphosate use and cancers of the circulatory system. Their results from a population of over 54,000 pesticide applicators found no relationship between glyphosate and cancer.
Infographics and Downloadables
Infographics and Downloadables
Infographics and Downloadables
Do GMOs Cause Cancer?
No. There is no evidence that GMOs cause cancer.
This is an extremely important question. Many questions on this subject have been submitted to GMO Answers, including questions about reports claiming that glyphosate, the herbicide that Roundup Ready GMO crops can tolerate, causes breast cancer and about a Séralini study (now retracted) claiming GMOs caused cancer in rats, among others.
Cancer is a scary and complex group of diseases with many possible causes, but GMOs are not one of them. In fact, future GMO plants may even play a role in prevention through traits engineered to produce nutrients that help fight cancer or eliminate naturally occurring compounds that increase cancer risk.
Dr. Kevin Folta from the University of Florida states it simply:
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