Glyphosate was originally patented and registered as a chelating agent. That means it binds and holds onto various ions and prevents them from being available elsewhere. If food is contaminated with Glyphosate it holds vital nutrients in the digestive tract and prevents the body from properly absorbing and assimilating them. If the body doesn't absorb them then it becomes deficient and the overall elemental homeostasis becomes unbalanced. Vital enzymes and metabolic pathways become compromised. If the body cannot function correctly, ill health is inevitable.
Later, Glyphosate was found to interfere with the Shikimic pathway that is present in plants such as weeds but is not a pathway that occurs in mammalian cells. It is on the basis of safety tests performed on mammalian cell lines that Glyphosate is considered safe by those who have a financial interest in it. However when we consider that only 10% of cells that make up a typical mammalian individual are actually mammalian and the other 90% are made up by the biome ie the bacteria and other microbes that inhabit the body, then it is easy to see why safety tests based on isolated mammalian cell lines is far from indicative of the total effect on a living individual mammal that can occur if Glyphosate or any other test compound is consumed or breathed in etc.
The biome is made up of a significant proportion of microbes which have the shikimic Pathway. When Glyphosate encounters these bacteria it disrupts their metabolism and the delicate balance of the biome that helps determine our health is upset. See the Microbirth video to help understand the importance of the biome if this is a new concept to you. Unfortunately, it is mostly the beneficial symbiotic bacteria that utilise the Shikimic Pathway which means that when they are poisoned, the benefits of these useful bacteria are lost as well as the dysbiosis that occurs when more harmful elements of the Biome are allowed to over-populate the micro-environment they inhabit. This happens because the beneficial bacteria that usually compete with less beneficial elements of the biome no longer keep their growth in check.
Below is the Abstract taken from the published paper available as the pdf on the left.
"Pesticides are used throughout the world as mixtures called formulations. They contain adjuvants, which are often kept confidential and are called inerts by the manufacturing companies, plus a declared active principle, which is usually tested alone. We tested the toxicity of 9 pesticides, comparing active principles and their formulations, on three human cell lines (HepG2, HEK293, and JEG3). Glyphosate, isoproturon, fluroxypyr, pirimicarb, imidacloprid, acetamiprid, tebuconazole, epoxiconazole, and prochloraz constitute, respectively, the active principles of 3 major herbicides, 3 insecticides, and 3 fungicides. We measured mitochondrial activities, membrane degradations, and caspases 3/7 activities. Fungicides were the most toxic from concentrations 300-600 times lower than agricultural dilutions, followed by herbicides and then insecticides, with very similar profiles in all cell types. Despite its relatively benign reputation, Roundup was among the most toxic herbicides and insecticides tested. Most importantly, 8 formulations out of 9 were up to one thousand times more toxic than their active principles. Our results challenge the relevance of the acceptable daily intake for pesticides because this norm is calculated from the toxicity of the active principle alone. Chronic tests on pesticides may not reflect relevant environmental exposures if only one ingredient of these mixtures is tested alone."