Why are nine of the 22 amino acids that exist for all proteins so important in human health — and why aren’t they located inside the human body?

If humans rely on natural environmental systems and food to produce these essential amino acids, why are we poisoning our soil and water ecosystems with toxins like glyphosate? Is there a way to fix the chemical assault on human health?

Dr. Zach Bush answered these questions on immunity, herbicides, gut health and more on this CHD.TV episode of “The Defender Show” with host, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Bush is a triple-board-certified physician specializing in internal medicine, endocrinology and hospice care. He is an internationally recognized educator and thought leader on the microbiome as it relates to health, disease and food systems.

Bush founded Seraphic Group and the nonprofit, Farmer’s Footprint, to develop root-cause solutions for human and ecological health.

Kennedy and Bush took a deep dive into how to preserve the trillions of microorganisms of thousands of different species coexisting inside the human body — the microbiome.

Bush and Kennedy discussed what happens when toxic chemicals such as glyphosate, one of the most widely used herbicides in the U.S, enters our food supply and disrupts the body’s shikimate pathway — the metabolic pathway used by bacteria, archaea, fungi, algae, some protozoans and plants for the biosynthesis of folates and aromatic amino acids.

To explain why the shikimate pathway is so vital to our microbiome, Bush described the process of a ripple effect. By adding glyphosate, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and other environmental toxins to soils, air and water, the shikimate pathway, which contains the 22 amino acids that exist for all proteins, can no longer utilize most of those amino acids.

“The way glyphosate injures people is really by the microbiome,” Kennedy clarified. “And by rewarding the bacteria that caused inflammation and making a much more hostile environment in your gut and in your body.”

You are “removing the police force for the invaders,” Kennedy said, allowing inflammation to take over the body.

Bush likened the 22 amino acids in the body to the alphabet. “You’ve only got these few letters that produce hundreds of thousands of words.”

In the same way vowels are critical to the English language, the 22 essential amino acids are critical for the shikimate pathway. Without vowels most words will be misspelled. By eliminating four or more of the critical amino acids, the body is “misspelled” at the protein level.

“And when we miss the proteins, we lose detoxification capacity,” Bush said. He described the ripple effect, adding that without repair capacity, people age at an accelerated rate, which leads to the emergence of diseases such as sarcomas.

“And so in just a single generation, by deleting the alphabet of human biology, we ended up with a chronic disease epidemic on a grand scale,” he said.

Glyphosate “breaks the tight junctions of the Velcro between our body and the outside world,” Bush said. “And, when you lose the tight junctions, you turn into a leaky sieve. And what you’ve just destroyed is the very front line of a whole category of human immunity that we call the innate immune system.”

Bush shared an uplifting story about working with pre-diabetic children in a classroom in Hawaii, and how eating food grown from a regenerative school garden rebalanced their bodies so they no longer were predisposed for diabetes. His nonprofit focuses on planting regenerative gardens in food desert environments.

Kennedy told Bush he’s glad his work addresses both policy and practical solutions. “I wish you were secretary of HHS [Health and Human Services] and you were redirecting this thing to actually saving humanity,” Kennedy said.

“We can do it faster than HHS can,” said Bush. We need to end chemical food systems and we have to do it “extremely quickly,” he added.

“Now it’s time for mobilization and a coherent plan for the public,” said Bush, who has great faith in the power of our innate immune system. “It’s so easy to get stressed out over the powers that be when you hear things about the ‘deep state’ or a ‘cabal,’ but we’re in the driver’s seat — literally, we can go into their fear and guilt paradigm and play into the whole thing, or we can just create an alternative pathway.”

“The Defender Show” is hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., founder, chairman and chief legal counsel of Children’s Health Defense, and author of multiple books, including the New York Times bestseller, “Crimes Against Nature.” Kennedy was named one of Time magazine’s “Heroes for the Planet” for his success helping Riverkeeper lead the fight to restore the Hudson River. He is founder of Waterkeeper Alliance, and of counsel to Morgan and Morgan, a nationwide law firm.