🔍 Common Concern

glyphosate

The world's most-used herbicide, and an unusual case of open regulatory disagreement: IARC called it probably carcinogenic in 2015 while EPA and EFSA concluded no cancer risk at expected exposures. Read carefully, the cancer literature resolves into something more precise than the public fight suggests — null for ever-exposure, with elevated risk confined to the highest-cumulative-exposure applicators, and a 2026 NIEHS study implicating the co-formulants rather than glyphosate itself. Essentially none of it is about diet. The celiac claim traces to a single 2013 hypothesis paper with no original data and has never been tested epidemiologically. The gut-microbiome mechanism is real in principle but has no human data at all.

1 well-supported · 0 disputed. This shows how settled each sub-question is, not whether glyphosate is "good." Direction lives in each claim below.

The 6 claims about glyphosate

Each keeps its own verdict — we never average them away.

Does glyphosate cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma?

Leans support Not from food. For heavily exposed applicators the highest-exposure group does show elevated risk, though the biggest long-term study found none. A 2026 study suggests the other ingredients in the formulation, not glyphosate itself, may be what matters.

Does glyphosate disrupt human hormones?

Contested Several studies find lower sex hormones in people with more glyphosate in their urine, but they cannot show which causes which, and most come from the same survey. Much of the animal evidence tested Roundup rather than glyphosate, and the other ingredients may be doing the work.

Does glyphosate cause kidney disease?

Contested A kidney disease epidemic in farming regions of Sri Lanka and Central America prompted this, but the leading explanation is heat stress and dehydration in outdoor workers. The one study measuring both found the job mattered and glyphosate levels did not.

Is the glyphosate in your food harming you?

Contested The studies suggesting harm are mostly the same 4,700 people analysed over and over, and they share a flaw: poor kidney function raises urinary glyphosate, so cause and effect may run backwards. Measured dietary intake sits at a tiny fraction of the safety limit.

Does glyphosate damage your gut bacteria?

Contested 🐭 Non-human evidence The theory is sound, because gut bacteria have the exact pathway glyphosate blocks. But it has never been tested in a single human. The evidence is rodents, mostly at doses far above anything you would eat.

Does glyphosate cause celiac disease?

Insufficient This comes from one 2013 paper that noticed glyphosate use and celiac diagnoses rose at the same time. Nobody has ever tested it. Celiac diagnoses also rose because doctors started screening for it.

Educational only, not medical advice. Hub descriptions are curated for honesty; see the methodology.