Genetically modified food is all about modified DNA. Modifications are made in the DNA through crossbreeding or by creating alterations in the genetic material. They are modified such that DNA of one species is extracted and injected into the genes of an unrelated plant or animal. They have been modified to be resistant to certain herbicide or improving the quality of the crop. It also increases the nutrient quality and the production of the crop. All this seems to be useful to the environment. Since more nutritious crops are good for us and additionally if they yield more, it can reduce the world hunger problem. However, it’s not as simple as it looks. Along with the benefits it comes with some side effects. With the increase in the use of GM food, it is very necessary to know if it’s causing any harm to us or not. There are few concerns about GMOs being affecting human health negatively. Many researches and studies are conducted to compare the affects. There has been no supportive evidence which indicates that GM food is toxic to us. However, it is also not proven to be completely safe for consumption. There have been many debates regarding weather to label GM food material or not. There are several other reports by Soil Association of UK and others which indicates GM crops may manifest adverse effects on humans and animals. The controversy about the health safety of GM food is complex. On the other hand, FDA does not think its mandatory to label them so they haven’t come up with any such rules of labelling or putting a ban in US. However, GM food is banned in over 30 countries over the world. Hundreds of studies are conducted to see if GM is affecting to us in anyway. Many articles contradict in their opinions. There are few studies which indicates that GM food has led to adverse microscopic and molecular effects in some organs or tissues. GM food is also believed to cause allergic reactions in general. There has been an increase in allergic and gastrointestinal ailments in the last 25 years which parallels the introduction of GMO food. This correlation does not prove causation but when there is smoke, it is time for science to identify the source of fire. While doing the research something interesting they found is that the consumption of GMO food is causing the decrease in fertility. The sperm count has been decreased about 40-50% since the 1970s. This could be another correlation, but this also the main reason GMO food is banned in UK. Therefore, they conducted researches on rats if this is true. It is also believed that those who ingest GMO regularly are more likely to age faster, fall sick faster, and hard time getting pregnant. If GM food is really affecting the fertility in us, we need to conduct studies and find out if it’s true. Therefore, various studies were conducted on few animals in different ways to see the effect of GM food on the reproduction.
Talking about the GM food effect on female animal reproduction, it is studied that there are no short term feeding adverse effects. Groups were fed using the short term feeding model where they were fed GM food for not more than one month. The results showed no adverse effects in the ovaries in the mice who was fed GMO food. Hens were fed GMO food for 4 weeks and still there was no effect on anything including the number of yolks and egg and ovary weight, follicle number, oviductal weight, egg production, egg mass and feed efficiency. However, long term feeding studies indicate few changes. [1] It contained sub chronic and chronic toxicity. The long term feeding studies was based on a GM diet of 90 days or 13 weeks. Short term feeding studies shows that there’s no effect on the reproductive system, but there some serious debates on the long term feeding effects. Further investigations are yet to be done about this. While considering the serious debates of the long-term and multi-generational feed toxicology studies, it can be assumed that the increase in the newly expressed protein could lead to a toxic effect on the reproductive function. Also, transgene expression is subject to change when the gene is placed in a different background through breeding. These things are not yet confirmed through analyses yet but it is worth noting that a lot of reports indicate that external DNA or protein is absorbed by the digestive tract. This can exert some effects on it and the microbial population in the tract. These effects may cause severe problems.
The results were further tested on the male reproduction systems. To see the effects of GM food on the testes of mice, an experiment was conducted where the pregnant Swiss mice were fed GM soybean and the other group was fed the wild type soybean. They were then killed by cervical dislocation when 2, 5 or 8 months old. Various structures were then observed under the microscope. Sertolli cells of GM fed mice of all ages showed enlarged vesicles of the smooth endoplasmic reticulum, this is different than in the control’s testis. Also, the nucleus in 2 and 5 months-old GM fed mice appeared to be larger than control. A statistically significant increase in perichromatin granules(PG) was also observed in spermatocytes along with in Sertolli cells in GM fed mice. There was also a decrease in the number of nuclear pores in GM fed mice. These finding suggests that a decrease in the transcription occurs in mice. Clusters of PG is said to be resulting from incomplete processing of RNA from the nucleus. Reduction of transcription occurring parallel to decrease in NP causes accumulation of PG. This accumulation of PG causes a feedback on the nuclear function. This is what is believed to be happening similarly to the testicular cells of GM soybean fed mice. SER dilation was observed in 8 months which was not reversible, is believed to affect mouse fertility. Another modification affecting the fertility are the sertolli cells. Impaired Sertolli cells leads to germ cell degeneration and loss which can affect fertility as well. Impaired sertolli cells cannot produce seminiferous tubular fluid which plays an important role in sperm maturation. Sertolli cells thus plays an important role in sperm maturation. If they are impaired, the maturation of spermatids will also be affected. This clearly explains how fertility is affected by impaired sertolli cells, which are affected by GM food.
Turns out GM food not only have reproduction effect, but it also has other adverse effects. GM has been believed to cause a severe effect on mouse’s liver. An experiment was conducted where mice were fed GM food to see its effect on the metabolism. The results showed that the hepatocytes of GM-fed mice depicted modifications in mitochondria and nucleus. Which indicated reduced metabolic rate. [3] However, the macroscopical analysis did not reveal evident differences between control and GM-fed mice. They found a significant downregulation of the senescent marker regulation, which plays an important role in the intracellular signaling systems which maintains intracellular homeostasis by activating Calcium pump enzymes in plasma membrane. [3] There are several findings which suggests a lower metabolic activity in hepatocytes from GM- fed mice compared to controls. Smaller cellular and nuclear areas indicate decreased metabolic rate. The GM-fed mice had a decreased in the respiratory activity of mitochondria compared to the controls. There was an increase in liver metabolism which accelerates the aging process. This also demonstrates that GM soybean intake influence the liver morpho-functional features during the physiological processes of ageing. There are several findings underlining the importance to further investigate the long-term consequences of GM diet. However, no significant difference in the mortality rate was observed between the two animal groups.
During the research I came across a study which I found quite interesting. This study was conducted in which adult albino rats were separated into four groups and each group was fed differently. One was the control which was fed the wild type soya bean, one was fed GM soya bean, one was given extra virgin olive oil and the last was given GM soya bean mixed with the olive oil. The results depicted that the GM soya bean has adverse effects on the fertility of the adult rats. It is said to reduce the activity of the Leydig cells and decrease the production of testosterone. Leydig cells play an important role in testosterone production so one affects the other. It may also affect the release of testosterone. It also reduces sexual organ weight, sperm count, sperm quality and sperm motility. Reduced sperm development was shown in the testicle of the GM fed rats. All this results in reduced fertility and affect population at large. Adding olive oil to the GM soya bean ameliorates the effect of it on the reproductive organs of the mice. Adding olive oil increased the testicular weight and the sperm count and motility. This technique can be used against the adverse effects of GM food on rats and protect them or restore their fertility. However, this is true for the albino rats so we can’t say if it’s definitely going to work on the normal rats. Also this article has only been cited once so we can’t for surely predict the firmness of the conclusion. While we are trying to ban the use of GM food due to its effects on the animals, studies have come up with ways to nullify the effect using other techniques. If this study proves out to be trustful, it can really do wonders. Many animals are being affected by GM food. This can save a lot of them.
One important thing about the study, almost all animals are affected by the GM soya bean and very less by other GM crops. Very less by cotton or rice. May be the modified soya beans are really altered to change their genetic content compared to the other plants. While we are studying about GM soya beans affected mice and rats, studies have found out that the GM corn is considered to be rat poison. Rats relying on those corns are found out to develop a tumor and faster mortality rate compared to the control group. The tumors in both exes developed were two to three times bigger than the tumor in rats who fed non GM corn. There are several studies conducted by Monsanto which appears to dismiss this matter. But those studies have been conducted on short term duration. When concentrated on this for long, it has adverse effects since the tumor doesn’t develop until 14 months. So conclusion cannot be drawn on basis of the short term duration because it is only for 90 days. Something else which was different among the control and the other group was the rate of tumor. The tumor in GM fed rats was bigger and aggressive than the control group.
All these factors can be taken into consideration and see how harmful can the GM food be for us. May be the correlation of the decrease in the sperm count since the invention of GM food is not just co-incidence. They have concluded that there’s more than a casual association between GM food and adverse health effects. There is causation. It is having several effects on us. It is very necessary to be aware of the happenings and the food we consume. We have to know what goes through that digestive tract. It is believed that GM food affects the most to babies. When the soy was fed to female rats, most of their babies died within three weeks. Also, compared to the control the babies were smaller and mother having trouble getting pregnant. Female rats showed changes in their ovaries and uterus. When male rats were fed the modified soy, they observed a change in the testicles color. GM food has also lead to death, diseases and sterility in the animals. In Europe and Asia, cows and water buffaloes are believed to die from testing the corn variety. That variety of corn has also been believed to cause a sterility in pigs or cows. Using the recombinant genes is also a risk because the use of recombinant GH or its expression increases IGF-1 which may promote cancer. [2] Therefore, it should be re-examined before using it.
Conclusions can be drawn from this GM does has severe effects on rats or mice and also us. All these cannot be mere coincidences. Studies have been conducted to see how much true all these are and they have quite proven the point they are trying to make. So we can’t ignore all these happenings. This research really worries me about the human health few years later. There are some people out there who still doesn’t know what GM foods are and they have been consuming it for years now. So I decided to conduct a small survey and see how much aware people are. 52.63% people of didn’t know what GM food is. One of the question in the survey was if they think modified food is harmful for them and 63% of them think it is. They were told about the studies which shows fertility reduction in rats and asked how strong do they think is the conclusion. 72% said it’s fairly strong, 17% said it is very strong and the rest 11% thought it was weak. Then they were asked if humans would have the effects as rats due to GM food. 67% of the people thought it would. They were also asked after learning about all this, are they still willing to eat GM food. 56% of them said no. More than 50% of people I surveyed didn’t know what GM food is. We lack education among people regarding this topic. They need to be aware of the surroundings.
There have been various speculations about the sources I used for the research. I have mentioned about the number of times the articles are being cited. The numbers are not quite less. The popularity of these articles can tell us how the researches are used and taken seriously. They may be used to further research about something else. There has been a big debate going on about the safety of GM food. Researches may say that it’s not harmful to us, but we cannot ignore these findings. What plays an important part is what and how the rats are fed GM food. Whether it is the same as what we eat. That would impact the results a lot. We need to more research and see how badly does GM food impact rats. As of now, we can say that it sure does have an effect on the fertility of rats.