Bowel Cancer at 39: The Weed Killer, The Wake-Up Call and Our Gut Health
What if the hidden chemical in your food is quietly tipping your body towards disease?
Nick Dugmore, best known as “Duggie”, is a vigneron, founder of Stoke Wines, and a passionate advocate for glyphosate awareness. At just 39 years old, Duggie was diagnosed with bowel cancer. After his diagnosis he went looking for an answer to the question any of us would ask: why me, and why now? What he discovered changed everything: a severe glyphosate exposure, leaky gut, disrupted amino acid pathways, and a food system that had quietly been compromising his health for years.
Glyphosate is a weedkiller sprayed on crops here in Australia and right around the world. Duggie explains what it actually is, in plain terms: it kills weeds by switching off a process that plants need to survive, called the shikimate pathway. Humans don't have that process — which is exactly why we were told it was safe for us. But the bacteria living in our gut do.
Today, Duggie shares his powerful personal story: from the cytokine storm that left him covered in rashes and addicted to scalding hot showers, to the moment his surgeon told him his tumor was 14 to 16 months old, giving him a timeline for his tumor development that lead him right back to a camping trip with severe glyphosate exposure. He walks us through the science of glyphosate, how it disrupts the shikimate pathway in us, chelates essential minerals, destroys gut bacteria, and mimics the amino acid glycine to infiltrate our bodies.
But this isn't just about one man's cancer journey. It's about the rise of bowel cancer in young Australians (up 266% in the last 30 years), the disconnect between humans and nature, our broken food system and why we're now filling stomachs instead of nourishing bodies.
Want to learn more about Duggie?
Check out Stoke Wines, his podcast and instagram for his advocacy work:
https://www.instagram.com/thepowerofawarenesspodcast/
https://www.instagram.com/stokewines_au/
Want to minimise your glyphosate exposure? Start by eating organic where possible and connecting with your local farmers. Check out the Gut Girl Podcast free resources for more. We dive into the use of pesticides particularly in Chapter 5 (Part 1) of our free eBook ‘Lifestyle and The Gut - Part 1’, which you can access in our free full eBook or as a single chapter here www.gutgirlpodcast.com.au/resources.
Check out @gutgirlpodcast on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok for podcast highlights!
