What if cancer isn’t simply something that happens to us, but something that emerges from the biological terrain we’ve been cultivating for decades?

Dr. Nasha Winters, an internationally recognized leader in metabolic and integrative oncology and a member of the Alliance for Natural Health USA Board, joins Mike Ames-Sikora to explore cancer, metabolic health, environmental exposures, informed choice and a radically different vision for cancer care.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

◼ What Nasha means by the “terrain” and why it matters in cancer and chronic disease
◼ Why disease processes may begin long before diagnosis
◼ What basic blood tests can reveal about metabolic, inflammatory and immune health
◼ How environmental exposures contribute to our cumulative body burden
◼ Practical ways to reduce everyday exposures without chasing perfection
◼ Why informed consent and patient choice matter in cancer care
◼ How integrative and conventional oncology could work together
◼ Why regenerative agriculture, food, circadian rhythm and community belong in the healthcare conversation
◼ Nasha’s vision for a terrain-centered cancer hospital and research institute
◼ Why she joined ANH International and the threats she sees facing integrative oncology

The post The Mike Drop Podcast: Dr. Nasha Winters first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

The chemical industry is preparing a new surge in “forever chemical” production to feed the AI economy. Regulators must stop chasing one PFAS at a time and protect the public by acting on the entire class. Action Alert!

THE TOPLINE

• Demand for data-center cooling and semiconductor manufacturing is driving expanded production of PFAS “forever chemicals.”
• Replacing older PFAS with less-studied alternatives risks perpetuating pollution and exposing people to poorly understood health hazards.
• We must fight for a class-wide ban on non-essential PFAS uses, strong drinking-water protections, and requirements that polluters pay for cleanup.

How AI Boom Drives Forever Chemical Boom

Despite the well-documented health dangers associated with PFAS “forever chemicals,” major chemical companies are expanding production to meet the needs of the AI tech boom. Specifically, the chemicals are being used for data-center cooling systems and in semiconductor fabrication.

A new survey from the Swedish chemicals watchdog ChemSec found that most of the world’s largest PFAS producers plan to increase production. The group warns that this expansion could unleash a new “tidal wave” of PFAS pollution even as governments struggle to contain the contamination already in our water, soil, food, air, and bodies.

We cannot go in this direction. The answer is not another slow, molecule-by-molecule review. It is a class-wide ban on non-essential PFAS uses, with only narrow, transparent, time-limited exceptions where no safer alternative yet exists.

PFAS Whac-A-Mole

For decades, concern centered on long-chain PFAS such as perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS. As evidence mounted and pressure grew, manufacturers shifted toward newer short-chain PFAS and other replacements, often promoted as safer because they may leave the body faster than some legacy compounds.

But a shorter half-life is not the same as “safe.” As ANH-USA has reported, emerging research raises serious questions about short-chain PFAS: some can move readily through skin, reach blood and organs, cross the placenta, or break down into persistent metabolites. Their greater mobility can also make them difficult to contain and remove from water. The science is still developing, which is exactly why mass production should not race ahead of independent safety review.

Even if short-chain PFAS are safer, those benefits could very likely be far outweighed by the increased exposure we face as companies race to replace legacy chemicals with newer, less well-characterized alternatives.

Why a Class-Wide Ban Is the Only Rational Course

PFAS are a large and chemically diverse family, and individual compounds do not all have identical toxicity or behavior. But scientists have argued that their shared persistence, the hazards documented for studied members, and the sheer impracticality of evaluating thousands of chemicals one by one justify managing PFAS as a class. A class approach also helps prevent manufacturers from swapping a restricted compound for a close cousin that has less data but the same defining persistence problem.

ANH-USA is calling for a federal ban on PFAS as a class for non-essential uses. Any temporary exception should be publicly justified, limited to a use that is genuinely critical, reviewed on a firm timetable, and conditioned on strict controls, full disclosure, and a funded substitution plan.

Manufacturers and major commercial users should also bear the costs of monitoring, cleanup, safe destruction, and health-protective research. Taxpayers and water customers should not bankroll pollution created for private profit.

Innovation Doesn’t Mean Permanent Pollution

Some companies are already showing that exit is possible. ChemSec identifies Archroma as a producer marketing PFAS-free alternatives, while BASF has said it will phase out most PFAS-containing products by 2028. Those moves undercut the claim that expanding PFAS production is the only path forward.

Tell Congress and the EPA to stop the chemical Whac-A-Mole. Ban non-essential PFAS uses as a class, protect strong drinking-water standards, require full public disclosure of production and releases, and make polluters pay to clean up the contamination they create.

Action Alert!

The post AI’s Dirty Secret: Data Centers Are Fueling a New Forever Chemicals Boom first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

EPA’s public comment period on glyphosate closes today. This is the final chance to demand that the agency consider independent science on cancer, reproductive, metabolic, and developmental risks before it updates its human health assessment. Action Alert!

THE TOLINE

• EPA is seeking input on the scientific literature that will inform its updated glyphosate health assessment, following a court’s rejection of its earlier human-health review.
• Animal studies and human observational research raise concerns about cancer, reproductive health, and metabolic effects that warrant rigorous evaluation.
• Submit comments by September 24 urging EPA to consider relevant independent studies, explain exclusions, and transparently evaluate uncertainties and conflicts of interest.

How much evidence of potential harm should accumulate before regulators rethink their assurances about a widely used weedkiller?

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking public input on its search of scientific literature about glyphosate, the herbicide associated with Monsanto-Bayer’s Roundup. The search will inform an updated human health risk assessment targeted for late 2026. EPA is asking the public to identify relevant peer-reviewed studies missing from its evidence list. We must weight in: an assessment cannot adequately protect the public if important evidence never makes it into the analysis.

EPA’s Earlier Assessment Failed in Court

As ANH previously reported, farmworker and environmental advocates successfully challenged EPA’s handling of glyphosate. In June 2022, the Ninth Circuit vacated the human-health portion of EPA’s 2020 interim review decision and ordered further analysis and explanation. The court also found that EPA violated the Endangered Species Act.

The ruling established that EPA’s human-health reasoning was seriously flawed.

It’s important to note that this isn’t out of character for this agency. EPA’s pesticide oversight has a deeply troubled record (see, for example, here, here, here, here, and here.)

We’ve reported previously on court documents showing that a top EPA official, Jess Rowland, promised Monsanto he would quash an effort by the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct its own review of glyphosate. He was successful—the HHS review never happened. A letter from a former EPA employee dying of cancer accused Rowland of having intimidated staff, compelling them to change reports to make them favorable to Monsanto.

While EPA claims to be impartially assessing the science, the track record is one where top officials put their thumbs on the scale to favor industry.

Cancer Concerns Have Not Gone Away

In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Its assessment cited limited evidence in humans, sufficient evidence in experimental animals, and strong evidence of DNA-damaging effects.

A 2025 study led by the Ramazzini Institute adds important evidence. Researchers exposed rats to glyphosate or two commercial glyphosate-based herbicides beginning before birth and continuing for two years. They reported increased tumor incidence or dose-related trends at multiple sites, including leukemia. The lowest tested dose corresponded to the EU’s acceptable daily intake.

A 2019 meta-analysis combining six epidemiological studies estimated a 41 percent higher relative risk of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma among people in the highest glyphosate-based-herbicide exposure groups.

The Questions Extend Beyond Cancer

ANH has also highlighted research following children from farmworker families into young adulthood. The 2023 CHAMACOS study linked exposure measures involving glyphosate and its breakdown product AMPA with indicators of liver inflammation and metabolic syndrome at age 18.

A 2025 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found reductions in average birthweight and gestational length in regions with higher glyphosate exposure. A 2024 study of 128 men attending a French infertility clinic detected glyphosate in seminal plasma and found that its concentration was approximately four times higher than in blood plasma. Men with detectable glyphosate also had higher measures of oxidative stress, including a marker of oxidative DNA damage.

Our own ground-breaking testing of common breakfast items in 2016 set off a cascade of similar testing that has shown how extensively our food is contaminated with glyphosate. These include many foods that are marketed towards children.

For ANH, preventing chronic disease means examining chemical exposures alongside nutrition and lifestyle. Families should not have to shoulder the entire burden of navigating unresolved pesticide risks.

What EPA Needs to Hear

EPA should comprehensively evaluate independent research on cancer and noncancer outcomes and address vulnerable stages of development. It should explain study exclusions, evaluate funding and conflicts of interest consistently, and make clear how uncertainty affects its conclusions.

Action Alert! Leave a comment on the EPA official docket to include relevant studies on the dangers of glyphosate to human health.

The post Last Chance Today: Tell EPA to Count the Full Glyphosate Evidence first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

New research shows that the way food is grown may influence its nutritional value—and that healthy food begins with healthy soil. Action Alert!

Listen to the audio version of this story:

THE TOPLINE

• Growing practices and soil conditions can affect crop compounds such as polyphenols, vitamins, and pigments.
• Regenerative and organic practices—cover crops, crop rotations, lower disturbance—produce healthier soil, reduced pesticide/herbicide use, and more nutrient-dense foods that support the gut microbiome and other human health factors.
• Congress must support soil health measures in the Farm Bill, including the Agriculture Resilience Act, Soil CARE Act, and SCALE Act, with pesticide oversight and safeguards for contaminated amendments.

You can fill your cart with vegetables, cook meals from scratch, and do everything you are told is healthy. But what if the food itself is not as nourishing as it could be?

Two vegetables that look identical may contain contrasting levels of the very compounds that help protect our health. Emerging research suggests that these differences may begin with how plants are grown—and with the condition of the soil within which they’re cultivated. For families trying to eat well and prevent chronic disease, that raises a fundamental question: Are we growing food simply to fill our stomachs, or to truly nourish our bodies?

Organic Rocks While Regen Ag Data Emerges

Organic agriculture can be regarded as a subset of regenerative farming. Buit because it’s been studied for a long time the data is more mature and there are some strong evidence that, compared with conventional agriculture, it produces crops with consistently higher levels of key compounds that are beneficial to health and reduce inflammation and oxidative stress—key drivers of chronic disease—such as polyphenols, flavonoids, anthocyanins, carotenoids and other biologically active secondary metabolites.

Large systematic reviews and meta-analyses indicate that organic production can materially alter food composition, particularly by increasing concentrations of health-relevant phytochemicals: Barański et al. found markedly higher levels of several antioxidant/polyphenol classes in organic crops, while Brandt et al. reported around 12% higher secondary plant metabolites overall and about 6% more vitamin C in organic fruit and vegetables. In animal foods, meta-analyses found substantially higher omega-3 fatty acids in organic milk and meat, while emerging regenerative-agriculture research suggests that soil-building practices may also increase selected vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals in crops.

The regenerative evidence is less mature than the organic literature, so there’s less to shout about in terms of its benefits. But a 2022 paired-farm study and a 2023 scoping review both support the proposition that farming practices which improve soil health can, in some circumstances, enhance the micronutrient and phytochemical density of food

What Beets Reveal About Food Quality

An August 2026 study from Utah State University compared conventional, organic, and Regenerative Organic Certified beets from southwestern Oregon. The fresh organic and regenerative-organic samples contained approximately 53 percent more polyphenols than conventional samples. These are compounds plants manufacture that have antioxidant and other biological activity.

Regenerative beets also contained more betalains—the pigments responsible for their distinctive color—than organic beets, although their advantage over conventional beets was not statistically significant. Mineral levels showed no consistent winner.

The study was small, with only one farm or source representing each system. Differences in varieties, growing conditions, and collection years prevent firm conclusions about what caused the results. Nevertheless, it raises a crucial question: does our chronic disease crisis have its roots (no pun intended) in the very way we grow our food?

How We Feed Plants Changes What They Give Us

Another study published in January 2026 provides further support for this notion. Researchers growing Chinese broccoli found that moderately reducing nitrogen increased vitamin C, phenolic compounds, and several minerals without sacrificing yield. Excessive nitrogen produced the lowest phenolic concentrations.

This experiment used hydroponics, so it does not demonstrate the benefits of healthy soil. It does show that how we nourish plants can fundamentally alter their composition and thus change what those plants offer us. When we give plants lots of soluble nitrogen by applying fertilizers, they direct more energy toward rapid growth and less toward manufacturing certain secondary compounds. Lower or more gradually available nitrogen can sometimes stimulate phytochemical production without necessarily reducing yield.

Connecting Soil Health to Food Quality

Soil, then, does much more than hold roots in place. Its organisms help cycle nutrients, while its physical and chemical properties influence water availability and plant growth.

• A review of 60 studies found that planting cover crops—plants grown to protect and enrich the ground between harvests—increased the abundance and activity of soil microbes compared with leaving fields bare.
• In a separate 21-year farming experiment in Switzerland, organically managed plots had more stable soil structure and more earthworms.
• A 2022 study comparing regenerative and conventional farms, that we mentioned in passing above, found that fields managed with cover crops, reduced disturbance, and diverse rotations generally had more soil organic matter and better soil-health scores. Their crops also contained higher concentrations of certain vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals. 

Plants respond to healthier soil by changing their chemistry in ways that protect them better against pests and diseases, while also providing more benefits to us as consumers.

ANH has previously examined declining nutrient concentrations in food that coincided with the rise of industrial agriculture. A comparison of USDA data from 1950 and 1999 found declines in six nutrients across 43 crops considered as a group.

The upshot is this: As industrial agriculture has become the dominant form of growing food, nutrient levels in fruits and vegetables have declined. This has had profound implications for human health.

Feeding the Gut Microbiome

For example, the nutritional quality of food matters to the trillions of microorganisms that make up the gut microbiome. Different microbes depend on different dietary compounds, particularly diverse fibers and polyphenols from fruits, vegetables, herbs, nuts, and other whole plant foods. Beneficial bacteria ferment certain fibers to produce short-chain fatty acids that help nourish the intestinal lining and regulate immune and inflammatory responses.

If farming practices influence the variety and concentration of phytonutrients in food, soil health could therefore affect more than the plant itself: it may also help determine the range of compounds available to support our internal microbial ecosystem.

The effects go beyond the microbiome. We’ve written previously about how large portions of the American public are not getting the nutrients they need and that these micronutrient inadequacies can increase the risk of chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.

Reduced Reliance on Pesticides and Herbicides

Greater diversity on farms can also help reduce dependence on pesticides. In a nine-year Iowa experiment, researchers added small grains and legumes to the familiar corn–soybean rotation. The more diverse systems used 88 percent less herbicide while maintaining effective weed control and comparable or better yields and profitability. Once those systems were established, their estimated potential to harm freshwater ecosystems through herbicide use was dramatically lower.

In the Swiss study mentioned above, the organically managed plots used a whopping 97 percent less pesticide input while supporting greater biodiversity.

Carefully designed crop rotations can help farmers control weeds while reducing chemical inputs that negatively effect the environment and human health.

The Push Away from Real Food

The evidence is showing the power of regenerative agriculture approaches to improve human health and planetary health, yet special interests are pushing in another direction. We’re seeing a new wave of foods created in a lab like gene-edited plants, plant-based proteins, and precision fermented foods. A massive wave of deregulation has opened the floodgates to these products based on the principle of “substantial equivalence.” In essence, the FDA has said that it doesn’t matter how a food gets created. If the finished product looks and smells like a tomato, then it gets regulated like a conventionally-grown tomato.

These technologies, while distinct, prompt the same question: how much of food’s value can we capture by assembling selected ingredients? The crop studies demonstrate why nutritional equivalence should never be assumed from a few numbers on a label.

Rebuilding Health from the Ground Up

Congress can help farmers adopt practices that rebuild soil, protect biodiversity, and reduce reliance on pesticides. The Soil CARE Act (H.R.7474) would strengthen training in regenerative farming practices. The Agriculture Resilience Act (H.R.3077/S.1507) also has positive provisions on soil health and agroforestry. The SCALE Act would provide $50 million a year for state and Tribal soil health and wildlife habitat programs. The bill would leave substantial flexibility to local programs, however, rather than requiring organic production or reductions in pesticide use.

Tell Congress that these investments must include safeguards against contaminated soil amendments, preserve meaningful pesticide oversight, and support research connecting farming practices with food quality.

Action Alert!

The post Is Human Health Rooted in the Soil? first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

Prescriptions of GLP-1 drugs to children under 12 are rising at extraordinary speed. Are we turning a childhood health crisis into a lifetime pharmaceutical market?

Listen to the audio version of this article:

THE TOPLINE

• A national study found that 20,282 US children ages 8–11 with obesity but not diabetes received a GLP-1 prescription between 2019 and June 2026—a 310-fold increase.
• Wegovy’s safety and effectiveness for weight reduction have not been established in children under 12, and its adolescent evidence rests largely on one 68-week trial.
• New pancreatitis and vision warnings, together with surging FDA adverse-event reports, reinforce the need for stronger long-term surveillance.

The GLP-1 boom is moving into the elementary-school years.

A new Pediatrics study examined more than 3.5 million children ages 8–11 with obesity but not diabetes. Researchers found that 20,282 received prescriptions for drugs such as Saxenda, Wegovy, and Zepbound between 2019 and June 2026, representing 310-fold increase.

Use remained uncommon overall—about 0.6 percent—and nearly 94 percent of recipients had severe obesity. These children are not simply seeking a cosmetic shortcut. They face a genuine health crisis and deserve a pathway to good health.

But recognizing the problem does not require accepting the pharmaceutical industry’s preferred answer: placing ever-younger children on drugs that may need to be continued indefinitely while the conditions making them sick remain largely untouched.

Prescribing Is Racing Ahead of the Evidence

GLP-1 drugs can produce substantial weight loss and improve metabolic markers. For some high-risk patients, the benefits may be significant. The concern is the widening gap between adoption and long-term safety evidence.

Wegovy’s current US label states that safety and effectiveness for weight reduction have not been established below age 12. Its approval for those over the age of 12 rests largely on a 68-week trial of just 201 patients—hardly conclusive evidence against the possibility of exposure lasting decades.

Adverse effects were also common. In the trial, 62 percent of treated adolescents reported gastrointestinal reactions, compared with 42 percent receiving placebo. Nausea affected 42 percent and vomiting 36 percent. More than half experienced a maximum heart-rate increase of at least 20 beats per minute.

New Safety Warnings

And regulators continue to identify new risks. In January 2026, the UK medicines regulator strengthened class-wide pancreatitis warnings after receiving 1,296 reports, including 24 cases of necrotizing pancreatitis and 19 fatal reports.

Vision concerns have also arisen. The European Medicines Agency concluded that non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION—a condition that can cause sudden vision loss—is a very rare side effect of semaglutide. In July 2026, Australia added class-wide warnings for this potentially blinding condition.

Preliminary research presented at the 2026 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons found that, at five years, GLP-1 users had higher recorded rates of osteoporosis and gout. This was an observational conference study, so more research is needed to confirm this concerning safety signal.

What we see in the news tells a different story of side effects. We hear about an ever-expanding list of the benefits of GLP-1 agonists. They improve heart health, protect your kidney, liver, and joints, give you better sleep, boost brain health—and maybe even slow aging.

Nearly 300,000 FDA Cases

But there is a story to be told about the harmful effects of these drugs.

At ANH-USA, we reviewed the FDA adverse-event database for semaglutide, tirzepatide, and liraglutide. The search returned 295,785 cases. Annual reports rose fifteen-fold between 2021 and 2025, from 5,451 to 82,419. Nearly 82 percent were received from 2023 onward, and gastrointestinal disorders appeared in roughly one-third.

These reports do not prove causation or reveal how frequently adverse events occur. The FDA warns that its system includes duplicate, incomplete, and unverified reports, while rising drug use also drives reporting. But the steep increase still demands stronger surveillance and better age-specific data—particularly when these drugs are moving toward younger patients.

A Lifetime-Treatment Model

GLP-1 drugs suppress appetite and slow gastric emptying while they are taken; they do not repair the food environment or build lasting metabolic resilience. A 2025 meta-analysis found significant weight regain beginning eight weeks after anti-obesity drugs were discontinued.

That creates a dependency problem: a prescription in childhood can become an implicit proposal for years or decades of treatment.

These drugs may have a role for selected high-risk patients, but they cannot substitute for prevention. America cannot inject its way out of a broken food system, sedentary living, and collapsing metabolic health. The 310-fold prescribing increase is a warning—not about the children, but about the direction of our healthcare system.

People taking a GLP-1 medicine should not stop or change treatment without consulting a qualified healthcare professional.

Please share this article widely in your networks.

The post The GLP-1 Generation: Are We Medicating Childhood Obesity Instead of Preventing It? first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

Loneliness and social isolation don’t just break hearts. Find out why social disconnection is a modern day disease epidemic and what we can do about it.

This article has been adapted from an article by Chimnonso Onyekwelu and Meleni Aldridge for our sister organization, ANH International. Read the full article here.

Listen to the audio version of this article:

THE TOPLINE

• Loneliness and social isolation are whole-body health risks, triggering stress, inflammation, impaired immunity, cardiovascular problems, sleep disruption, cognitive decline, and changes to the gut microbiome.
• Modern isolation is driven by factors including shallow digital interaction, car-centered communities, declining civic and neighborhood ties, dispersed families, remote work, long hours, and financial pressures.
• Rebuilding social health requires intentional habits such as regular check-ins, face-to-face activities, tech-free time, community participation, and the “5-3-1” approach: connect with five people weekly, nurture three close relationships, and aim for one hour of quality interaction each day.

Can human connection be so fundamental that losing it changes our biology?

Yes. Absolutely. 

Loneliness doesn’t just make people sad. Our brains interpret loneliness and social isolation as a survival threat.

And that level of threat can trigger a host of negative outcomes, including stress, inflammation, impaired immunity, cardiovascular risk, cognitive decline, disrupted sleep, and changes to the gut microbiome.

In other words, loneliness is not simply an emotion—it is a whole-body biological state. Left unaddressed and unresolved, the body is set on a downward spiral into ill health.

An Unrecognized Risk

When we think about the biggest threats to health, smoking, poor diet, lack of exercise and environmental pollution usually come to mind. Yet loneliness exerts a pathological power all of its own. Finally, a growing body of conventional evidence is underpinning this very important, but far less recognized, risk factor, although the research often centers on the impacts of ‘social isolation.’

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around one in six people worldwide experiences loneliness, with social isolation linked to more than 871,000 deaths every year. Some researchers have even suggested that the health impact of chronic isolation may be comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

The Power of Connection

At the heart of the issue lies something often overlooked in conversations about wellbeing: social health. Just as physical health relates to the body and mental health to the mind, social health reflects our ability to build meaningful relationships, maintain supportive connections and experience a genuine sense of belonging.

As inherently social beings, humans thrive through connection. Strong social ties have repeatedly been linked to better health outcomes and greater longevity. In one Australian study, adults over the age of 70 with the strongest social networks were 22% less likely to die over a ten-year period than those with weaker social connections.

Why Are We Becoming More Isolated?

The rise in social isolation cannot be reduced to technology alone, but digital culture has clearly reshaped how connection happens. We can now communicate constantly, yet with less depth, meaning, or emotional connection. Seventy-three percent identify technology as a contributor to loneliness, alongside concerns about excessive digital use, especially among younger groups.

The physical and social design of modern life has also changed dramatically. Many cities now prioritize cars over people, while neighborhood cohesion, communal spaces, church communities and civic participation continue to decline. Families are more fractured and geographically dispersed; fewer people live in intergenerational households, and everyday opportunities for natural social interaction have steadily reduced.

Economic and cultural pressures have further deepened this fragmentation. Longer working hours, remote work, financial strain and rising housing costs leave many people overworked, exhausted and disconnected from support systems. Over time, isolation can become cyclical, with stress, grief and mental health struggles reinforcing withdrawal from connection.

The Biological and Psychological Consequences of Isolation

One of the clearest impacts of chronic disconnection is on mental health. Loneliness has been associated with depression, anxiety, emotional dysregulation and increased stress reactivity, with lonely individuals twice as likely to experience depression. Studies (here and here) also link prolonged isolation to suicidal thoughts and reduced psychological resilience. Young people appear particularly vulnerable.

The effects are not only psychological but neurological. Research increasingly shows that prolonged social disconnection alters brain function. Social isolation has been linked to cognitive decline, impaired memory and a significantly increased risk of dementia.

We have survived evolution through the power of coherence and connection—socially as much as physiologically and biologically. Hence, the body interprets chronic disconnection as a sustained threat. Isolation activates the stress response, increasing cortisol levels and driving chronic inflammation if the ‘threat’ remains unresolved. Over time, this contributes to immune dysregulation, cardiovascular strain, and metabolic dysfunction.

Strong social ties are a protective antidote. A Swedish study involving more than 17,000 people found that stronger social connections reduced the risk of death from all causes by almost 25% over six years.

Rebuilding Human Connection in an Age of Fragmentation

This trajectory is not inevitable. Rebuilding connection requires deliberate action at personal, community and policy level, with social health treated as essential rather than optional.

Below are practical ways to restore meaningful human connection in an increasingly fragmented world:

• Stay in regular contact with people who matter: Schedule daily or weekly check-ins through calls, messages or in-person time to maintain consistent connection.
• Prioritize face-to-face interaction: Shift parts of your routine into social spaces like cafés, parks or shared work environments to create natural interactions where you can exchange energies with others.
• Build connection through shared activities: Join clubs, classes, physical activity or community initiatives where in-person interaction happens around common interests.
• Create tech-free time each day: Step away from screens to improve presence, attention and the depth of real-world relationships.
• Ground in nature on a daily basis: Move naturally in nature’s playground
• Ask about Social Prescribing: Started in the UK, social prescribing aims to connect people to activities, groups and other support to help improve health and wellbeing through connection with others.
• Adopt small, consistent social habits: Use simple structures like regular meetups or the 5-3-1 approach to make connection routine rather than occasional:
  • 5: Spend time with five different people a week.
  • 3: Nurture three close relationships.
  • 1: Aim for one hour of quality social interaction a day.
• Protect your mental and physical health: Exercise, sleep well, eat properly and engage in calming activities to reduce stress linked to isolation.
• Follow a daily routine with purpose: For some, structure can create stability and increase opportunities for social interaction.
• Practice openness and active listening: Show genuine interest in others and share honestly to build trust and deeper relationships.
• Engage with your local community: Volunteer, attend events or simply introduce yourself to neighbors to build local social ties.
• Use support systems when needed: Access community groups, social prescribing, or services that help reconnect people who are at risk of feeling isolated and lonely.

Play your part in the re-connection movement and help those in your network re-connect socially: please share this article widely.

The post The Loneliness Epidemic first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

From Michelle Perro, MD. Visit her Substack for more.

Listen to the audio version of this article:

Prior to this part launch, part rant, and of course, weed whacking, I need to give credit to my podcast producer, Anne Temple. We were prepping for the next podcast and she mentioned that in her neck of the woods, the air was horrific from the Canadian fires. She asked what happens to glyphosate when it burns?

I thought I knew all things glyphosate, but I was stumped. I wasn’t sure, so I had to dig my way through the weeds and jump in the rabbit hole.

This article is dedicated to all the wonderful Canadians I’ve had the pleasure to get to know through the most unfortunate circumstances, including those brilliant minds behind the development of the National Citizens Inquiry.

Pictured left: Michelle Perro, MD.
Image source: https://gmoscience.org/dr-michelle-perro-resources/

Here goes…

It is July 2026. Over 900 active wildfires are burning in Canada across Ontario, Manitoba, and beyond while blazes in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters have crossed the border in both directions. Smoke has engulfed the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial in an orange-gray haze. Detroit, Chicago, and Minneapolis have registered some of the worst air quality on the planet. Major League Baseball postponed games. The Soap Box Derby canceled events. The President is threatening tariffs. Millions of Americans from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic are checking air quality apps, sealing windows, and pulling N95 masks from drawers that hadn’t been opened since the pandemic.

The models generating those air quality readings track one variable: PM₂.₅ mass per cubic meter of air. They do not ask what is on the particulate. They do not model what happens when millions of hectares of glyphosate-sprayed forest burn, and the smoke crosses a continent.

No regulator in North America has ever asked that question. Not because it’s unanswerable. Because nobody has been required to.

The Scale of the Spraying

Canada does not track its own glyphosate use federally. No national database exists. What we know comes from patchy provincial data, often extracted through freedom of information requests.

Sapinski & Surette (2023) paper on New Brunswick confirms: In Canada, no jurisdiction — federal or provincial — monitors glyphosate presence in the environment or in human populations. The only testing done is by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency who monitors levels of glyphosate residues in food.

New Brunswick: Forestry accounts for 61% of all glyphosate use. Eighty-three percent is applied by helicopter. Roughly 0.5% of forested land is sprayed annually which may be small per year, but enormous when compounded across decades. New Brunswick sprays nearly ten times more forest than similarly sized Nova Scotia, ranking second only to Ontario in total area treated.

British Columbia: Over 430,000 hectares sprayed since the 1970s, increased to 738,000 when re-sprays are included.

Ontario: Rivals or exceeds New Brunswick. Precise figures are elusive.

Quebec: Banned aerial forestry spraying in 2001. The industry survived. The practice is not essential. It is a choice.

The dominant player in New Brunswick, J.D. Irving Limited, uses glyphosate to kill deciduous trees and accelerate conifer growth for pulp and timber. The economic logic is simple: spray the hardwoods, harvest the softwoods faster. The ecological logic has never been stress-tested against fire.

The Chemistry

Glyphosate (N-phosphonomethylglycine) decomposes above 198°C. At wildfire temperatures ranging from 600 to 1200°C, it breaks down almost instantly. But destruction is transformation.

Narimani and da Silva (2020) mapped the pathway: glyphosate eliminates phosphorous acid, producing imine intermediates that react with water vapor to form simple amines and carbonyl compounds. Mackie and Kennedy (2019) went further, identifying sarcosine and dimethylamine (DMA) as decomposition products (their paper, tellingly, was commissioned to evaluate the safety of incinerating glyphosate stockpiles). Controlled conditions. Engineered temperatures. Scrubbers.

A forest fire is none of those things.

Smoldering zones burn below 500°C which is hot enough to volatilize glyphosate, but not necessarily hot enough to fully destroy it. The USDA Forest Service’s own review concedes the following from their abstract;

Studies conducted on herbicides and insecticides indicate that hot fires (>500°C) thermally degrade most pesticides. Smoldering fires (<500°C) have the potential to volatilize significant amounts of some pesticides. Exposure analyses indicate that, even under conditions of smoldering fires, no significant human health risks occur from pesticides incorporated into or on forest fuels.

…then dismisses the risk based on prescribed burn data.

And deeper in the paper, they admit their risk analysis was based on burning herbicide-treated wood in a fireplace and that the safety margins they calculated assumed “unrealistically” complete volatilization. That’s their basis for dismissing the risk. A fireplace. Not 900 wildfires. Not megafires. Not decades of accumulated AMPA in the soil.

AMPA: Worse Than Glyphosate

Glyphosate degrades in soil into aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA). It is three to six times more toxic to aquatic organisms and far more persistent. Glyphosate’s soil half-life ranges from 1.5 to 53 days, lasting longer depending on soil conditions such as pH. AMPA’s: 26 to 45 days under warm conditions, up to 958 days in some studies. In one lysimeter experiment, glyphosate and AMPA together still constituted 59% of the original application 748 days after spraying.

AMPA is also more thermally stable. Boiling point: ~358°C versus glyphosate’s 230°C. Half-life at 1000 K: 4 milliseconds versus glyphosate’s 0.1. In a smoldering fire, AMPA may volatilize without fully decomposing, re-condensing onto smoke particulate as the plume cools.

The forest floor in sprayed zones carries years of accumulated AMPA. When it burns, all of it is up for grabs.

Smoke as a Chemical Courier

The idea that fire remobilizes soil-bound chemicals is documented, not speculative.

Genualdi et al. (2009) measured pesticides (dacthal, endosulfan, and γ-HCH) in smoke from Siberian fires reaching Oregon and Washington. Soil analysis showed 34 to 100% of pesticide mass was lost from burned plots.

Primbs et al. (2008) detected elevated pesticide concentrations at a remote Oregon observatory when air masses passed over fires in Alaska and Western Canada.

A 2026 study of aged wildfire PM₂.₅ collected in Maryland which was over 1,000 miles from the source detected phosphorus-containing organic molecules. The researchers weren’t looking for glyphosate or AMPA. But both are organophosphorus compounds. Phosphorus in transcontinental smoke is consistent with what you’d expect to find if they were riding the plume.

No study has specifically measured glyphosate or AMPA in wildfire smoke. The methods exist. The funding and the mandate do not.

Our Children: The Lungs That Pay

Children breathe more air per pound of body weight than adults which is roughly double. Their airways are narrower, and their detoxification systems immature as compared to adults. When wildfire smoke spikes PM₂.₅ by 3.82 μg m⁻³ across an entire country, the math is shockingly unforgiving: more particulate per breath, more breaths per minute, more years of accumulated damage ahead.

The 64,300 chronic deaths attributed to the 2023 fires capture mortality. They say nothing about asthma diagnoses, emergency visits, missed school days, or the cognitive effects of chronic neuroinflammation from inhaled particulate. And none of the models accounted for what was riding on that particulate such as glyphosate, AMPA, dimethylamine, or phosphorus fragments: compounds never tested for inhalation toxicity in combination. Imagine that scenario in a five-year-old.

The Institutional Gap

Regulators approved aerial glyphosate based on a static model: chemical binds to soil, degrades before reaching water, exposure limited to the application window. Fire does not appear in any environmental impact assessment. It never has.

New Brunswick’s Chief Medical Officer published a health assessment in 2016 concluding that existing measures were adequate. The report arrived during the IARC controversy when the WHO had classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic” the year prior and was met with skepticism. But the deeper failure is structural: the assessment couldn’t model combustion exposure because the data doesn’t exist.

No Canadian jurisdiction monitors glyphosate or AMPA in the environment or in human populations. No air monitoring. No water monitoring. No biomonitoring of exposed communities. No testing of wild-land firefighters who are indeed the canaries in this particular coal mine before, during, or after deployments on spray-zone fires.

The USDA’s own review dismisses pesticide-in-smoke risks on the logic that the smoke itself is already so toxic the pesticide adds nothing meaningful. This argument works only if you accept the baseline toxicity of wildfire smoke as acceptable. It is not. And the populations breathing it never consented to that faulty logic.

Quebec banned aerial forestry spraying in 2001. The industry survived. The rest of Canada chose otherwise. That choice carries consequences, and those consequences are now burning with a global impact.

Regulators approved aerial glyphosate on the assumption that the forest stays put. It doesn’t. The chemistry says glyphosate and AMPA decompose under heat into amines, phosphorous acid, and carbonyl compounds. The atmospheric science says fire-volatilized pesticides travel thousands of kilometers on smoke. The institutional record shows no regulator has ever connected these two bodies of knowledge and asked what it means for the people breathing the smoke.

The question isn’t whether glyphosate and AMPA decomposition products are in the smoke. The chemistry says they are. The question is why, after decades of spraying and years of mega-fires, no agency has ever measured them and what they’re afraid they’ll find if someone finally does.

What You Can Do

This is not a problem that requires new science. The analytical methods exist. The sampling protocols are standard. What’s missing is the political will to ask the question and that’s where you come in.

Contact your representatives. If you live in a state or province affected by wildfire smoke and in 2026, that’s most of North America, ask your elected officials a simple question: Has any agency measured glyphosate or AMPA in the smoke I’m breathing? If not, why not?

Demand answers from the agencies. These are the offices with the mandate, the data, or both:

• USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station — Flagstaff, AZ. Ask whether the 2000 fire-and-pesticides review has ever been updated, and whether its risk assessment applies to mega-fires burning through decades of accumulated spraying.
• EPA Office of Air and Radiation — Ask whether PM₂.₅ monitoring includes chemical speciation for pesticides or their thermal decomposition products. Ask why it doesn’t.
• Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada — Ask whether Canada maintains a national database of forestry pesticide applications, and whether it has ever overlaid spray data with fire data.
• BC Ministry of Forests — Ask whether the province has modeled glyphosate or AMPA fate during wildfire on its 738,000 hectares of sprayed forest.
• New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources and Energy Development — Ask whether the province has conducted any air monitoring or firefighter biomonitoring related to glyphosate — in the jurisdiction that sprays the highest proportion of its forests in the country.

Support independent monitoring. Organizations like the Breathe Project and various university-based atmospheric chemistry labs have the equipment and the expertise. They lack funding. If you have the means, direct your dollars toward groups doing air quality monitoring that goes beyond PM₂.₅ mass (the ones asking what’s in the particulate, not just how much of it there is).

Protect yourself and your family. While the institutions catch up and they will take years, invest in HEPA air filtration for your home. Wear an N95 or better when air quality indices spike. Keep windows sealed during smoke events. These measures reduce particulate exposure. They may also reduce exposure to whatever is riding on the particulate. We won’t know until someone measures it.

Don’t wait for permission to protect your lungs.

Action Alert!

The post Forest Fires and Glyphosate: An Examination of the Unspoken first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

The EPA is retreating from stronger safeguards against PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge, leaving farmers, families, and the food supply exposed to toxic “forever chemicals.” Action Alert!

Listen to the audio version of this article:

THE TOPLINE

• The EPA’s new draft guidance replaces an earlier risk assessment that warned PFOA and PFOS in sewage sludge could create serious health risks, even at very low concentrations, with largely voluntary recommendations.
• Nearly 60 percent of sewage sludge is spread on land, including agricultural fields, where persistent chemicals can contaminate soil, private wells, crops, livestock, fish, milk, meat, and eggs.
• Federal lawmakers should mandate comprehensive PFAS testing, prohibit contaminated sludge from being used on food-producing land, hold industrial polluters responsible, and phase out nonessential uses of PFAS.

The fertilizer spread on American farms may be carrying toxic “forever chemicals” into our soil, water, crops, livestock, and food. Instead of stopping that contamination, the EPA is retreating from stronger safeguards and leaving farmers and families to deal with the consequences.

On July 1, 2026, the EPA replaced a warning about serious PFAS risks in sewage sludge with weaker guidance. The agency dismissed its own earlier findings as too focused on worst-case scenarios and defended continued use of contaminated sludge as fertilizer.

But make no mistake: this is another example of the EPA rolling back protections against a dangerous class of chemicals.

The Earlier Assessment Raised Red Flags

The January 2025 EPA draft risk assessment found that PFOA and PFOS in sewage sludge could pose human health risks when sludge is land-applied, surface-disposed, or incinerated. EPA said some modeled scenarios exceeded acceptable risk thresholds by several orders of magnitude when sewage sludge contained just 1 part per billion of PFOA or PFOS.

EPA identified possible exposure through contaminated drinking water, fish, milk, beef, eggs, and certain fruits and vegetables from impacted properties. The agency also said PFOA and PFOS are persistent chemicals linked to adverse health effects, and noted that EPA classified both as likely carcinogenic to humans in 2024.

EPA now stresses that the earlier assessment focused on people living on or near impacted properties, not the general public. That is true. But it should not be used to minimize the stakes for the very people who are most exposed: farm families, rural residents, people with private wells, children playing in contaminated soil, and consumers eating food grown on affected land. Remember our pilot study on PFAS contamination in kale? Even organic samples tested positive for the presence of PFAS, and contaminated sewage sludge is one vector by which this contamination can occur. This problem affects all of us.

Let’s also not forget the propensity for PFAS chemicals to travel, even to the most remote places on Earth: they have been detected from Antarctica to the Mariana Trench.

Sewage Sludge Is a Pathway into the Food Supply

Sewage sludge is the semi-solid material left over after wastewater treatment. EPA uses the term “biosolids” for treated sewage sludge intended for land application as fertilizer or soil amendment. Under existing federal rules, biosolids may be applied to agricultural lands, forests, tree farms, golf courses, turf farms, and other land; they may also be sold in bags for lawns and home gardens. EPA’s own data says nearly 60 percent of sewage sludge is land-applied.

That should alarm anyone who cares about clean food and clean water. PFAS are called “forever chemicals” because they persist. They do not simply disappear after a crop cycle. Once introduced into soil and water, they can move through the environment and into the food chain.

EPA’s new recommendations tell the public to research sludge suppliers and avoid applying sludge where children may contact soil, or in garden beds for foods such as leafy greens and root vegetables, or where egg-laying hens forage.

Read that again: the federal agency charged with protecting public health is telling families to figure out whether the fertilizer they bought may contain toxic forever chemicals. The EPA is abdicating responsibility and outsourcing its job to the American people.

The Bigger PFAS Rollback

This sewage sludge move is not happening in isolation. On May 18, 2026, EPA announced proposed changes to the national PFAS drinking water rule. One proposal would keep enforceable limits for PFOA and PFOS but allow some systems until 2031 to comply. Another would rescind drinking water regulations for PFHxS, PFNA, GenX chemicals, and a hazard-index mixture standard.

In other words, at the same time PFAS contamination is being found in water, food, sludge, soil, and consumer products, EPA is busy rolling back public protections.

EPA should require robust PFAS testing in sewage sludge, stop contaminated sludge from being spread on food-producing land, force industrial polluters to keep PFAS out of wastewater systems, and move toward a broad phaseout of nonessential PFAS uses.

Americans should not have to become chemical detectives to keep forever chemicals out of their gardens, wells, eggs, milk, meat, and vegetables.

Action Alert!

The post EPA’s PFAS Sludge Retreat Puts Farmers and Families at Risk first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

Paraquat is so poisonous that a single sip can kill, yet it is still sprayed on American farmland and allowed near the food supply. Action Alert!

Listen to the audio version of this article:

THE TOPLINE

• The EPA acknowledges that one small sip of paraquat can be fatal and that there is no antidote, yet the chemical remains approved for agricultural use.
• Multiple studies and laboratory findings raise serious concerns about damage to the dopamine-producing brain cells involved in Parkinson’s.
• The bipartisan Paraquat Prevention Act would ban paraquat, prohibit the use of existing stocks, revoke allowable residues on food, and close the loophole for imported foods grown with the chemical.

Paraquat is so toxic that the Environmental Protection Agency says one small sip can be fatal. It cannot be used around home gardens, schools, parks, playgrounds, or golf courses. Yet it can still be sprayed in American agriculture, where farmers, farmworkers, rural families, and the food supply bear the risk.

That could finally change.

Representatives Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and Chellie Pingree (D-ME) have introduced the Paraquat Prevention Act, a bipartisan bill that would cancel all registered uses of paraquat, revoke food residue tolerances, ban the sale and use of existing stocks, and prevent EPA from re-registering the chemical in the future.

This is exactly the kind of common-sense health freedom legislation Congress should pass. Americans should not have to depend on a slow-moving captured agency to protect them from a pesticide already banned in more than 70 countries.

EPA Knows Paraquat Is Exceptionally Dangerous

EPA calls paraquat “highly toxic” and reports that accidental ingestion from illegal transfer into drink containers causes roughly one to two deaths per year. EPA requires paraquat to be used only by trained, certified applicators and says it should never be used around residential dwellings, home gardens, schools, recreational parks, golf courses, or playgrounds.

That raises the obvious question: if paraquat is too dangerous for a golf course, why is it acceptable where food is grown?

The Parkinson’s Evidence Keeps Building

Paraquat has been linked in multiple studies to increased Parkinson’s disease risk. A major Agricultural Health Study paper found Parkinson’s disease was strongly associated with paraquat and rotenone, pesticides used in laboratory models of Parkinson’s-related damage. A more recent study in California’s Central Valley found further evidence that agricultural paraquat exposure increases Parkinson’s risk.

The biology is deeply concerning. Parkinson’s develops as dopamine-producing neurons are damaged or lost. Laboratory research has shown that paraquat can harm dopaminergic neurons, the very cells central to Parkinson’s disease.

EPA has long resisted concluding that paraquat causes Parkinson’s in humans. But public health policy should not require absolute certainty when the stakes are irreversible neurological disease, fatal poisoning, and repeated exposure among farm communities.

The Bill Closes the Import Loophole

The Paraquat Prevention Act does more than cancel registrations. It also directs EPA to revoke any food tolerances that allow paraquat residues on food. That matters because a domestic ban without a residue ban can become a loophole: U.S. farmers lose the chemical, but imported food grown with paraquat can still enter the country.

A true ban must protect consumers, farmers, and honest competition. If paraquat is too dangerous for American fields, it should not be tolerated on imported food either.

EPA Keeps Protecting Chemicals, not the Public’s Health

Paraquat fits a familiar pattern. First, a chemical becomes entrenched in agriculture. Then health evidence accumulates. Then the agency asks for more data, more review, more time. Meanwhile, industry insists the science is unsettled, and the public keeps absorbing the risk.

This is the same failed model Americans have seen with glyphosate, PFAS, and other chemicals regulators allowed to remain on the market while independent scientists, exposed communities, and advocates raised alarms.

Congress should not wait for EPA to find the political courage to act. The agency already knows paraquat is highly toxic. The scientific record already supports urgent concern. More than 70 countries have already acted.

Now the federal government must choose: protect people, or protect a pesticide.

Action Alert! Tell Congress to support the Paraquat Prevention Act and ban paraquat nationwide.

The post One Sip Can Kill. Why Is Paraquat Still on Our Food Fields? first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

Real food may be more alive than regulators are willing to admit. Action Alert!

Listen to the audio version of this article:

THE TOPLINE

• Research into ultra-weak photon emissions (biophotons) indicates that living foods emit measurable light linked to metabolic activity, with early studies suggesting these emissions could become a new way to assess plant health, food quality, and the benefits of regenerative farming.
• While regenerative agriculture emphasizes healthy soil and biodiversity, recent U.S. and EU policy initiatives could use the language of regeneration to accelerate adoption of gene-edited crops, genetically engineered microbes, and other engineered agricultural technologies without adequate oversight.
• Regulators should require rigorous safety testing, independent research, and clear labeling of engineered agricultural products rather than treating them as “substantially equivalent” to conventional foods, allowing consumers and farmers to make informed choices about the future of the food system.

Scientific research on food quality may have been missing one of the most important attributes of healthy foods all along.

It was back in the in the 1920s, that Russian biologist Alexander Gurwitsch first proposed that dividing cells emit tiny amounts of ultraviolet light—“mitogenetic radiation”—which could stimulate cell division in nearby tissues, planting the idea that living systems produce ultra‑weak light signals. Then, in the 1970s, German biophysicist Fritz‑Albert Popp revived and extended this work by rigorously measuring single‑photon emissions from cells and arguing that these “biophotons” reflect highly ordered, possibly coherent regulatory processes in living organisms, helping to establish biophotonics as a modern research field.

This field of biophoton research has more recently moved to foods and it raises fascinating questions about food quality, plant vitality, and the difference between food grown in living systems and food produced with industrial inputs. At the same time, policymakers and special interests are trying to move us in a very different direction, toward lab-made foods, gene-edited crops, genetically engineered soil microbes, and regulatory shortcuts that treat engineered products as if they are “substantially equivalent” to conventional food.

We face a fork (pun intended) in the road. One path asks how farming can restore soil, plant health, nutrient density, and food vitality. The other asks how quickly government and industry can redefine engineered foods and farm inputs as “green” while ignoring their vitality or healthfulness.

The Hidden Light of Living Foods

Every living cell produces tiny flashes of light as a natural consequence of metabolism.

These ultra-weak photon emissions (UPE) are not visible to the naked eye—they are roughly a thousand times weaker than human vision can detect—but highly sensitive cameras can measure them. Scientists now understand that these biophotons arise when reactive oxygen species generated during normal metabolism create electronically excited molecules that release photons as they return to their resting state.

Far from being fringe science, UPE has become an active area of research in plant biology, food science, and medicine.

What Does This Have to Do with Regenerative Agriculture?

Regenerative agriculture seeks to improve soil health, biodiversity, and ecosystem function while producing more resilient crops. Until recently, evaluating those benefits has often required labor-intensive chemical analyses or long-term ecological studies.

Biophoton research offers a fascinating possibility.

Because UPEs reflect ongoing metabolic activity and oxidative processes, researchers are investigating whether these light emissions can serve as a rapid, inexpensive, non-invasive way to monitor plant physiology, oxidative stress, disease, ripening, and food quality without damaging the product being tested.

Commenting on the possible implications of UPE research on foods, Rob Verkerk, PhD, ANH’s executive and scientific director, said, “It’s of course not just the amount of light that is emitted that’s likely to be important, it’s also the quality and coherence of the light. It could be, for example, that unadulterated, natural foods that are free from interference from modern biotechnology—that haven’t been genome-edited, that have been cultivated on real, living soils, teaming with microbes that also haven’t been genome-edited—have different, potentially more coherent emission profiles.”

The science is still developing, but the direction is intriguing: healthier growing conditions may leave measurable signatures that extend well beyond nutrient content alone.

Dr. Verkerk added, “UPEs may also provide in the future another layer of information that could expose additional problems associated not only with GE foods but also with ultra-processed foods.”

Evidence Is Beginning to Accumulate

One particularly interesting study examined eggs produced under different farming conditions.

Researchers compared eggs from conventional battery-caged hens with eggs from free-range hens using ultra-weak photon imaging. They found that eggs from free-range hens exhibited approximately eight times greater biophoton emission than eggs from conventionally raised birds.

The study demonstrated that production methods can produce measurable differences in the biological properties of food that conventional analyses may not fully capture.

The Bigger Picture

For decades, ANH has argued that food should not be evaluated solely by calories or a short list of nutrients.

Healthy soils produce healthier plants. Healthy plants support healthier animals and healthier people. While conventional nutritional testing remains essential, emerging fields like biophoton research suggest there may be additional dimensions of food quality that science is only beginning to understand.

As scientists continue exploring the faint light emitted by living foods, they may also be illuminating a new way to think about the relationship between agriculture, nutrition, and health.

But Washington’s “Regenerative” Agenda Has a Trap Door

On June 25, 2026, President Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Advancing Regenerative Agriculture and Strengthening American Farm Resilience.” The order uses promising language. It says regenerative practices can strengthen soil health, reduce input costs, improve chemical efficiency, maintain yields, increase market value, and strengthen rural economies. It also directs federal agencies to support regenerative agriculture research and expand public-private partnerships.

That all sounds good, but as always, “the devil is in the details.”

Section 2(d) directs Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, to prioritize research into “new, innovative, and cost-effective technologies” that reduce reliance on conventional chemical crop protection tools.

That language could support genuinely regenerative approaches. But it could also become a federal green light for genetically engineered soil microbes and other engineered biological inputs marketed as alternatives to chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

This is the danger ANH has been warning about. Big Ag can read the public mood. Americans are increasingly concerned about glyphosate, pesticides, fertilizer runoff, ultraprocessed food, and chemical-intensive farming. The corporate response is not necessarily to move toward real food and living soil. It is to rebrand engineered biology as “regenerative” and “green”.

Genome-Edited Crops and Microbes Don’t Fit With Regen Ag

Genetically engineered microbes are being sold as the next climate-smart agricultural breakthrough: living organisms designed to fix nitrogen, reduce fertilizer use, improve yields, and help farmers lower chemical inputs. But once released into the environment, microbes are not like conventional chemicals. They can reproduce, mutate, spread, and exchange genetic material. ANH previously warned that GE microbes risk becoming “living pollution” because they may persist and move through ecosystems in ways that cannot be recalled.

We are seeing a similar effort from Big Ag and regulators to portray gene-edited crops as a natural extension of regenerative agriculture. These crops are marketed as tools to increase yields, strengthen resilience, reduce pesticide use, and improve nutrition. Because many are developed without inserting foreign DNA, they often avoid the more rigorous oversight applied to earlier genetically engineered crops and are sometimes presented as effectively “GMO-free.” This regulatory shortcut overlooks the fact that gene editing is still a form of genetic engineering and leaves important questions about long-term environmental effects, transparency, and consumer choice unanswered.

Current U.S. oversight of this new generation of genetically engineered microbes and gene-edited crops remains fragmented across outdated statutes, with no comprehensive federal framework specifically designed to assess their unique environmental and ecological risks.

If federal “regenerative” programs end up subsidizing or accelerating engineered microbial inputs or gene edited crops without robust long-term safety testing, transparency, and labeling, consumers and farmers could be pushed from one form of dependency to another: from chemical inputs to patented biological inputs.

The “Substantial Equivalence” Problem Is Spreading

This same logic is now reshaping food law internationally.

In the European Union, new rules for plants produced by certain New Genomic Techniques were adopted by the European Parliament and Council. The European Commission says Category 1 NGT plants are “equivalent to conventional plants” and will be treated like conventional plants rather than subject to GMO legislation. Category 2 plants, involving more complex modifications, remain under GMO rules.

This is the heart of the problem. “Equivalent” becomes the magic word that removes the consumer’s right to know.

For decades, regulators and biotech companies have argued that many engineered products should be treated like conventionally bred foods if they appear similar by selected criteria. But consumers are not asking only whether a gene-edited crop fits a technical equivalence test. They are asking whether it was engineered, who owns it, whether it is patented, whether it was tested for long-term ecological effects, whether it can contaminate organic or non-GMO supply chains, and whether they can avoid it if they choose.

Real Regeneration or Engineered Substitution?

If policymakers truly want regenerative agriculture, they should support farmers who build soil organic matter, reduce toxic inputs, protect biodiversity, improve nutrient density, and produce real food for real communities. They should fund independent research into soil health, plant vitality, nutrient quality, biophoton science, cumulative chemical exposure, and the long-term effects of agricultural practices on human health.

But they should not use the language of regeneration to fast-track engineered microbes, gene-edited crops, precision fermentation foods, or other “green” technologies without transparent labeling and precautionary oversight.

Regenerative agriculture is not just another branding opportunity for biotech. It is a chance to rebuild the relationship between soil, food, farmers, and health.

The question is whether government will protect that future, or hand it to the same entrenched interests that helped create the chemical food system in the first place.

ANH will be watching closely. Consumers should demand full transparency, independent safety review, labeling of gene-edited and engineered biological products, and policies that protect farmers’ and consumers’ right to choose real food grown in living soil.

Action Alert!

The post Is the Future of Food Real Food That Emits Light? first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.