How electrons affect our lives: Dr Jack Kruse
Change of perspective:
If there had been one person in the last couple of years that had influenced me the most with his opinion - it had to be Dr. Jack Kruse. He actually was one of the reasons I felt the need to create a website with accessible informations in German. A few years ago my whole understanding about health and fitness was based on food and heavy weights - as for a lot of you guys out there maybe still, too.
How would you react, if a neurosurgeon would step into your life, telling you that every foodstuff you put into your body ends up fundamentally as electrons and that other things like the correct usage of light and circadian rhythmicity have way bigger effects on health, body composition and much more? My reaction was as expected:
"This cannot be!"
After a few months of shaking my head about such heresy, I started to look for literature, that proved Jack wrong. My focus switched from meal-timing, functional movement screening, training methods and other conventional things to molecular biochemistry and physics. Every free time I had was used to understand the flow of electrons on the inner mitochondrial membrane (and of course much more - social interactions? Who cares!) and step by step I realised one thing. Jack seemed to be spot on. Not only that! A lot of confusing issues I had at work made sense with what Jack explained about our modern way of living. The feeling is always a mixture of excitement and desperation, when pieces fall into the puzzle and open up a new door to a room of which you know nothing. You start again at the beginning and have to question all the beliefs that were set in stone in your own mind. Now, that happened a couple of years ago.
"Excited" would have been an understatement of my reaction, when Jack told me that he would meet up with me for an interview. His website, www.Jackkruse.com, is filled with incredible connections, deep explanations of systems in our body - and not something, one could read with only moderate knowledge in English. That was also why I wished to talk to Jack and to translate it later into a German narrative version.
Now why this became a blogpost instead of an interview is something I'll tell you at the end. All the informations written down are from my memories (so probably not the whole thing) and won't replace the amazing one and a half hour long conversation Jack and me had. However I don't want to deny you what we were talking about. So let's get started.
"That's pretty simple":
The images on Skype would certainly have confused some people. While one person (me) was sitting in complete darkness, covered with a cap and some weird looking glasses on the nose (it was 10pm in munich), the other person (Jack) was sitting in a darkened room, while the window behind him showed clearly that it was a sunny afternoon where he was (and around 3pm).
Those of you, who already know a little about light, know how artificial light can mess up our internal clocks. Jack was kind enough to sit in a darkened room and to keep the lights low for me, while it was my job to protect as many receptors on my skin and eyes against mismatches, as I possibly could.
The interview started with a rather - for Jack - simple question. Believing that some listeners wouldn't be familiar with Dr. Kruse, or so well versed in English that they could just listen to other podcasts with Jack Kruse, I had to start on some fundamental level. Trust me, Jack ist not only about light. For those of you, that love a mental rollercoaster about human health, I dearly recommend to head over to his website.
What does food have to do with electrons?
The darkened human frame on the other side of the atlantic ocean slightly switched its position on the chair and started to talk. ,That's pretty simple..." - I heared the words running through my ears and smiled. Often listeners had to prepare for a not so simple answer (from their point of view). Complex topics can only be made simple to a certain degree, as you folks might agree. I felt comfortable though about what was about to come and looked forward to his explanation.
It should be coherent for those of you who know about the reactions going on in our most inner powerplants (mitochondria), that the broken down end product of every food flows as electrons over the inner membrane of our friends. That releases some protons through the membrane, creating a gradient, that lets them reenter the matrix (hi Neo) via complex 5. By this process, simply said, ATP is made.
Important to realise is that there is no protein- carbohydrate- or fat transport chain, but only an electron transport chain. When you think about energy, it should be all about the strength of voltage on your inner membranes, oxygen as terminal electron acceptor and a related redox-potential. Of course there is more to that story. Electrons can differ in certain things like their "spin" or where they get taken up on the respiratory chain - or even in which direction they flow. Explaining all this however would make this summary incredibly huge.
One thing was certain though after what Jack had said.
Electrons are the basis of all energy in us. There is more going on on our intracellular frontiers however.
What is paramagnetism and what does it have to do with oxygen?
Someone who had read a few of Jacks blogs should have stumbled upon the word "paramagnetism". Now what the heck is that? That term only means though, that a paramagnetic substance get's drawn to magnetic fields.
Magnetic fields get created, when electrons flow (over our inner membranes). So they attract oxygen. That is pretty neat, as oxygen works as the terminal electron acceptor in our body and yes that's also the reason why we have to breathe. If there would be no oxygen, the whole system would break down. If a person has an impaired electron flow, a slow spinning ATPase and related to that, a low magnetic field, oxygen doesn't get to where it should go - pseudohypoxia is the result and worsens the whole thing. To explain exactly what influences this central flow of electrons would be insane. Those who like insane, can head over to Jacks website. His blogs should keep you busy reading for about over a year (and that doesn't mean you directly understand everything).
Oxygen is not the only paramagnetic substance in the body by the way. DHA (fishoil) has similar properties. Seems like it has some important role to play in our cells. Remind you, that oily capsules and seafood have not much in common though.
Are there other sources of electrons besides food?
This question opens the doors to a lot of topics and was the first step of the interview to draw the conversation away from food as a hand full of aces. Nature apparently plays chess.
It would have been a loaded question to completely explain, but our neurosurgeon seemed to be used in answering this ever returning question.
Every food that we eat on a daily basis comes back to one central thing. Photosynthesis. Plants use the full spectrum of the sunlight to energize its reactions and to produce oxygen and glucose. Animals eat that energy and provide it for their natural enemies. It's kinda funny to think about a piece of steak and even the human body to be made out of light on a fundamental basis, isn't it? Our body works apparently on electricity and frequencies of light!
Plants however are not the only creatures on the planet, that can use the photoelectric effect.Light interacts with our eyes and skin and is the reason for some incredible effects. Vitamin D3 is not the only reason why the sun is important. To understand how light works in us, one might want to read the work of Gerald Pollack (4.phase of water) and some more books, that I have listed at the end of this blog. Jack had mentioned a lot while we were talking. To sum it up as easily as I can,
you could say that the right frequencies of light interact and excite the electrons on our skin (and eyes). The released energy gets transported and stored in our own fluid battery (EZ-water) where it gets used to power a host of processes. For those of you who know that Gilbert Ling had proven mathematically that ATP and its high energy phosphate bond cannot be the way the body powers itself, this should give you a hint on what such an information implies.
Besides the sun there are also other factors that actually might fall under a rather esoteric point of view. Grounding for example. To explain it you'd have to look at the sun as a cathode ray and the earth as an anode. Without going into too much details the earth itself gets powered up with a negative charge by the sun (yes, ignoring the athmosphere, the earth has a negative charge). Too bad, most of us walk around the globe with rubber shoes nowadays. Up to now people should realise how rarely we get out in the sun or walk barefoot. That's all pretty hippie anyway, isn't it?
I still wanted to stay with our powerplants for a bit longer, as D. Wallace wasn't mentioned until now, right? And his discoveries were staggering!
What's heteroplasmy and what does it have to do with diseases?
I had mentioned D. Wallace and the definition of % heteroplasmy in my post about cancer.
Fundamentally one could describe % heteroplasmy as the rate of mutation of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Every part of the mtDNA coding is part of the respiratory chain. If it goes awry, we have a problem creating enough energy, electron flow and ATP. The reason why the mtDNA is more important than the DNA in the nucleus (which has way more information), is that mitochondria are surrounded by a huge self created oxidative environment and get damaged way easier. Under normal conditions the body is able to balance it all out though reproduction, destruction and recycling. Increasing the demand however reduces the supply of (mt)stemcells that we have, which lets us age faster (we lose time). On top of that we can suppress important processes (e.g. sleep) with wrong behaviour or decisions.
Wallace had proven, that the biggest part (around 80%) of all disease can be related to an insufficency of energy. If someone has connected the dots yet, they should be able to answer the following question with ease.
Are we responsible for our own % heteroplasmy? Is cancer for example a sign, that a threshold in parts of our body had been breached?
We know that the mtDNA of our mother gives us a certain basis that dictates, how we start in life (good thing I'm a male!). Our environment and our every day life however decide, how we progress. That being said, natures laws don't care if we do mistakes whilst knowing it or not. If you think that you can outsmart nature, you pay the price for it. Cancer (as an example) is a disease coupled to an insufficency in energy in cells (hello Warburg). Jack nodded when I asked him if cancer is our own fault and not some genetic russian roulette. The good thing about the story is, that heteroplasmy is reversable to a certain degree. Jack corrected me though, as I said that conventional treatments (radiation and chemo) usually have a negative effect on the cause for cancer (energy insufficency and mutation of the inner mitochondrial membrane). While there is some truth behind that, some cancer can be treated very well with regular procedures.
I would have loved to ask him for details, but the question disappeared in my head (maybe Jack would be so kind to do me the favor of telling me more about it - if he does I will put it in this post). Another question was burning in my head and I was eager to ask it!
Can we measure % heteroplasmy? Are there indicators, that we are doing something wrong?
Interesting, isn't it? I'm sure a lot of you guys would love to know about that. Jacks answer was a little restrained - for a reason. There are seminars (webinars) on his website, where he goes into the dirty details of the human body. Those webinars are not freely accessible though. % heteroplasmy and ways to measure it are part of their content. Also, the answer to that question might not be answered so easily in public in a couple of minutes. If you want to know more about heteroplasmy - head over to www.jackkruse.com.
Well - how the heck should someone give a credible explanaition about that, without wearing a white coat? My own development would be a perfect example. Who would believe a former areamanager and instructor of the health industry even one word about electricity, heteroplasmy, light, water and all that context?
Dr. Jack Kruse is a renowned neurosurgeon in America and without this background he might have had a way harder time to get the message out. He describes himself as an innovator, who's combining all the pieces of the puzzle, while experts focus on their speciality. Everyone should be able to fathom though, how much knowledge about physics, biochemistry, quantumphysics and much much more this insane amount of work needs. His opinions about my own little misery was a little more optimistic and a shout out to everyone interested in his own health.
Every person has the ability to get their hands on informations nowadays. Studies on pubmed (for example) are accessible for everyone and we certainly are able to question our trusted doctors. Someone can know more about the relationship of collagen and water in our body, then their own family doctor. On top of that we are not bound by our own education that had set our point of view while we studied the crap out of our brains in medical school. Of course we both (and certainly you too) knew, that getting informations out of the web can screw you as easily. Also this is not to blame doctors. I don't know one single doc that wants to hurt people. It is way more important actually, to work together with your doctor. Heteroplasmy, the fourth phase of water, light therpay and much more get more and more priortiy. People should adapt to that fact.
"You need to remind people that science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding. In this sense science is the communication path man should be using to study how nature shapes us. We have to remind ourselves that the path is fallible because of the process of nature and the nature of man. Man always creates errors and often he fails to understand why his methodologies can create many scientific fallacies believed to be fact. Much of what man has learned and come to believe is not true in nature, it just happens to bring us closer to the truths that nature weaves. This occurs because Mother Nature's hand is capable of erasing while she simultaneously write's more wisdom that builds things around us. You begin to realize in every experiment and theory there's no such thing as a complete lie or complete truth. There's always some truth in there and that is what science is trying to squeeze out from the pulp. Man's duty is to distill the juice of nature with experiment, but how something is studied effects the results and this can create new knowledge or dogmatic fallacy. Realizing what was once believed to be true, but no longer is true, is what creates man's wisdom."
(Jack Kruse)
The only thing I think I understood about measuring %heteroplasmy in humans (there is already some stuff going on) and from what I've seen from Jacks biohacks is that it must have to do with light emissions of our body. And yes, we do emit certain frequencies of (invisible) light like infrared light for example (there is more to that story). That actually leads to the next question!
How does light interact with our circadian rhythm and how can mismatches destroy us over time?
Our inner clockworks are tightly coupled to the influence of light. While the early morning sun wakes us up and stimulates us via the blue, green and red spectrum, UVA in the afternoon has an amazing effect itself on our hormones (think optogenetics). The whole story is not about the interactions with our eyes though. The skin also needs sunlight. That shouldn't be surprising. We weren't dressed in jeans and shirts, when we were born. The skin and brain also developped from the same material (ectoderm). Sadly (or maybe thank god?) this is no free ticket for everyone to undress in our communities. Might feel a little weird to open up a bank account while talking to someone naked outside in the sun...
Using light correctly doesn't only mean that we have to be as the sphinx every morning, facing the sun grounded. Our modern age gives us the opportunity to use artificial light as a tool since round about 100 years (which is a minimal amount of time). This carries, as already mentioned, a cost with it. If some of us are using their electric devices like laptops, handies, television, lamps etc. at night, it gives a weird signal to their body.
The artificial light, dominant in the blue light spectrum (around 4 times stronger than the normal dose from the sun with no other frequencies like IR to balance it out), creates reactive oxygen species in our brain and body (and with it a stress response), suppresses the release of melatonin at night, destroys our normal sleeping pattern with all its important processes and puts us in such a bad (also hormonal) situation, that we can get diseases like type 2 Diabetes mellitus from it, used chronically. Consequences are still present the next day and can lead to favoring ,McDonalds over a Wiener Schnitzel" (Neuropeptide Y). This is not only important for people in shiftwork. It is also an explanation, why 350 diet books a year don't have the answer. Actually that insane number tells me two things. First, we don't know what the heck we're talking about. Second, food and nutrition are a huge market...
And we haven't mentioned electromagnetic fields anywhere yet, which is a topic most people love to neglect or point out as "woo" - even "Nature" wrote about it by now. And yes I belittled it myself for years. Maybe I've gotten a little smarter...
In my post about multiple sclerosis was a section at the end that looked at the effects of UVB and autoimmunity.
Not only are the reactions via TREG-cells and their immuneregulating effect (without any relation to vitamin D3) extremely exciting, there are also protective epigenetic adaptions, when used in a physiologic dose. The thought, that something like the sun, which had been present for billions of years and that we adapted to, would be bad, should clearly be reconsidered.
Even the permeability of the blood-brain-barrier and the gut lining get regulated by certain effects of the light spectrum. Lightdependant mitochondria are made from bacteria (endosymbiosis) for what we know, right? This might not be a good read for producers of pre- and probiotica,
If you think about how things like the leaky gut and inflammatory processes got into the spotlight these last couple of years. You could actually eat as much blue cheese or sauerkraut, as you want and it wont fix the root cause, according to Jack. It doesn't make sense to pour water over a plant with 30 holes at its bottom. You won't get optimal in the environment, you got sick in. Nutrition can be a tool in our box, but nothing more and it is definately not number one on the list.
Jack dropped a little bomb at the end, as he mentioned that people should look into dielectric mirrors. Now who would tell you that something like this tells you about how your body works? I would only know one person.
Everything happens for a reason...right?
At the end Jack and I continued to talk a little, before he had to take off to his next appointment. Gyms these days resemble hospitals. We should ask ourselves, if a 16 year old child should actually have two degenerative disc herniations (no accident). You get to see every disease around the globe, thinking that excercise will help them. Training under blue light after a stressful day in the evening is not a good way to health. Those remarks are dangerous. After all, they shake the foundation of our beliefs. Even without all the things I wrote about in this article, I know that most trainers are not ready for the requirements they should meet (I had to deal with that, you know?). And how could they? I consider myself lucky to have stumbeled upon Jack a few years ago, while still having an open mind and spending all the time I had on more knowledge.
I looked relieved. Jack was already on his way to his next meeting. I still had a ton of specific questions in my head and we only scratched a tiny surface of what's going on (even though that was for a reason). Jack is a compendium of knowledge he had aquired by studying like a madman, while he was working as a neurosurgeon. Still I was happy and the consequent tension that I had in my body that didn't let go of me for the whole interview, was finally gone (a clear sign that I respect Jack pretty damn much ). Talking to Jack again about more advanced stuff would be a blast! Still I didn't want to give my internal clocks their well needed rest. I opened my folder where the interview was saved and started to listen to the interview a second time.
I cannot tell what exactly the reason was, or what happened. Maybe it was because ot the thunderstorm, that was going on outside. About half an hour after the voices in my head started talking again (I mean the interview...) I had to painfully regret, that I didn't directly called it a night. My screen went black in an instant. First I thought the computer had shut down for any unknown reason - although the puzzeled clicking on the power button didn't show any effect. After around 5-10 minutes I gave up and went to bed with a growing bad feeling somewhere in my guts.
It wasn't easy to write Jack about what happened. My laptop went boom the same evening - and with it the freshly made interview (apparently a short circuit). Even though I was pissed about the laptop (it still had warranty) I was even more angry about the loss of the recordings.
Still I felt the need to write everything down that was in my memories. Not only because Jack brought something incredible to light (no pun intended). His point of view has to go through language barriers - fast. People should be skeptic (that also accounts for Jack and my opinions), but should also be open for change. The state of science is not set in stone and Jacks explanations are no volatile fancies.
With a bit of luck Jack will meet up a second time to continue where we stopped. One should never forget that while writing a lot on his website and forums, he's also working in the hospital surrounded by death and destructions, gives speeches and works on projects like the Quantlet. If my laptop melts down down a second time while doing an interview with him - Ill become an esoteric...
As promised you can see a list of books, that Jack recommended.
Book recommendations:
The fourth phase of water - Gerald Pollack
The Body Electric - Robert O. Becker
Cross Currents - Robert O. Becker
Going somewhere - Andrew Marino
Life on the edge - Jim Al-Khalili
The Epi-Paleo Rx - Jack Kruse
Light in shaping Life - Roeland van Wijk
The vital Question Part 1 - Nick Lane
The vital Question Part 2 - Nick Lane
