Ari LeVaux writes: Chinese researchers have found small pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the blood and organs of humans who eat rice. The Nanjing University-based team showed that this genetic material will bind to proteins in human liver cells and influence the uptake of cholesterol from the blood.
The type of RNA in question is called microRNA, due to its small size. MicroRNAs have been studied extensively since their discovery ten years ago, and have been linked to human diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes. The Chinese research provides the first example of ingested plant microRNA surviving digestion and influencing human cell function.
Should the research survive scientific scrutiny, it could prove a game changer in many fields. It would mean that we’re eating not just vitamins, protein, and fuel, but information as well.
That knowledge could deepen our understanding of cross-species communication, co-evolution, and predator-prey relationships. It could illuminate new mechanisms for some metabolic disorders and perhaps explain how some herbal medicines function. And it reveals a pathway by which genetically modified (GM) foods might influence human health.
Monsanto’s website states, “There is no need for, or value in testing the safety of GM foods in humans.” This viewpoint, while good for business, is built on an understanding of genetics circa 1950. It follows what’s called the “Central Dogma” (PDF) of genetics, which postulates a one-way chain of command between DNA and the cells DNA governs.
The Central Dogma resembles the process of ordering a pizza. The DNA knows what kind of pizza it wants, and orders it. The RNA is the order slip, which communicates the specifics of the pizza to the cook. The finished and delivered pizza is analogous to the protein that DNA codes for.
We’ve known for years that the Central Dogma, though basically correct, is overly simplistic. For example: Pieces of microRNA that don’t code for anything, pizza or otherwise, can travel among cells and influence their activities in many other ways. So while the DNA is ordering pizza, it’s also bombarding the pizzeria with unrelated RNA messages that can cancel a cheese delivery, pay the dishwasher nine million dollars, or email the secret sauce recipe to WikiLeaks.
Monsanto’s claim that human toxicology tests are unwarranted is based on the doctrine of “substantial equivalence.” This term is used around the world as the basis of regulations designed to facilitate the rapid commercialization of genetically engineered foods, by sparing them from extensive safety testing.
According to substantial equivalence, comparisons between GM and non-GM crops need only investigate the end products of DNA translation: the pizza, as it were. “There is no need to test the safety of DNA introduced into GM crops. DNA (and resulting RNA) is present in almost all foods,” Monsanto’s website reads. “DNA is non-toxic and the presence of DNA, in and of itself, presents no hazard.”
The Chinese RNA study threatens to blast a major hole in that claim. It means that DNA can code for microRNA, which can, in fact, be hazardous.
microRNAs are involved in EPIGENETICs. Genetics was seen as the unraveling of DNA to create an messengerRNA template (mRNA) which carries the message of the “gene” outside the nucleus to the cytoplasm where the protein product expressing that gene is manufactured by ribosomalRNA. microRNAs are loose pieces of RNA that decide the METHYLATION (chemical coiling DNA tightly thus preventing the unraveling first step to gene expression) by tightly twisting the DNA around its histone protein bobbin (like string wrapped on a bobbin) so that that gene is kept “off” as if it didn’t exist. microRNA can also ACETYLATE a gene so that it is always “on.” Thus, you indeed are what you eat because methylation and acetylation are both performed by various foods. But, if in addition, the food imports all sorts of loose microRNAs that also epigenetically program your genes, ingestion of loose microRNA is like eating mutation! As Prof. Jyrtl so brilliantly put it: the DNA system is the HARDWARE of your genetics while the epigenetic acetlyation and methylation epigenetics is the SOFTWARE. Ingesting engineered foods full of microRNA is like ingesting all sorts of viruses that scramble your inheritance.
So, you spend hundreds of $$ to secure your computer against MALWARE, yet you are helpless against microRNA MALWARE in your genome because, in America, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED to know if you are eating genetically engineered food full of microRNA malware. Eating brocolli and Brussels Sprouts we know is good for you because these methylate (block) oncogenes that, if expressed, they can cause cancer. But if you are eating engineered broccoli and Brussels Sprouts, you are injesting all sorts of microRNA malware. Yet, if you eat these vegetable, in America, BY LAW, you are not allowed to know if you’re eating natural vegetables or ingesting microRNAs that will methylate your genes from engineered vegetables. .
It is believed that cancer is a one two process; for example, step1: there could be a genetic mutation disabling an anti-tumor gene (gene whose product blocks endless growth and metastasis) and then, step2, there could be EPIGENETIC acetylation by microRNA of oncogenes, liberating production of cancer cells. That’s only one possible onetwo combination. In all this genomic-epigenetic setting loose microRNAs are like loose nukes. So it seems stupid for Obama to be willing to go to war stopping Iran from making nukes but to allow AGRO-CORPs to inflict on us billions of unknown and uncontrolled toxic microRNAs, risking our lives for their profits. It’s as if he not only considers corporations to be persons with rights but kings with limitless rights, cannibals eating us alive for profits.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17413852