Ray Peat: The importance of sugar and the dangers of fat (stress) metabolism

[Keit]

Similar for dairy, and I find it really hard to get my head around the whole dairy issue. It is so massively packed full of nutrients, the amino acid profile of milk/cheese is pretty amazing, and people (especially Europeans) have been eating dairy for such a long time. I suspect that if the gut is healthy, a portion of people can thrive on dairy foods... and I will be honest - I hope I am one of those people!! :P

Those people who can TOLERATE dairy do so by virtue of a genetic mutation. 75% of the population of the planet can't really digest casein. Think about it: a mutation.

Some time ago, and before the ketogenic diet, we talked on the forum about the "blood type diet", and how some blood types may tolerate dairy better than others. For example blood type B, that according the blood type diet is called "nomadic". And it is indeed possible, but considering what Laura wrote above, it is no more than an indication that a certain percentage of human population has a genetic mutation due to a lifestyle or other influences. It also doesn't mean that there are no other possibly harmful repercussions as a result.

Also, in another thread a forum member shared the following sentence from one of Carl Jung's talks:

-When you think in a certain way, you may feel better, when you think along the lines of nature, then you think properly.

And I think that it applies to the diet too. That we should always strive to act along the lines of nature and respect its unwritten laws. Which certainly doesn't exclude eating meat, but does exclude digesting milk that is intended for babies of other species. At least that's how it seems to me.

 

[Keyhole]

Keep in mind what animal milk is designed by nature to do: to grow a baby animal usually to a very big size pretty quick.

No other creature on earth continues to consume milk after weaning than humans - and they consume the products of other species. Kinda sick when you think about it.

Those people who can TOLERATE dairy do so by virtue of a genetic mutation. 75% of the population of the planet can't really digest casein. Think about it: a mutation.

-When you think in a certain way, you may feel better, when you think along the lines of nature, then you think properly.

And I think that it applies to the diet too. That we should always strive to act along the lines of nature and respect its unwritten laws. Which certainly doesn't exclude eating meat, but does exclude digesting milk that is intended for babies of other species. At least that's how it seems to me.

I agree, the idea of it is pretty sick. And for the majority of people, all dairy is a no-no. But when it comes to respecting the laws of nature, butter also falls under the category of consuming products of another animal's lactation. Less casein/lactose, but still fairly similar. So along these lines, is consuming butter against the laws of nature?

 

[fabric]

I agree, the idea of it is pretty sick. And for the majority of people, all dairy is a no-no. But when it comes to respecting the laws of nature, butter also falls under the category of consuming products of another animal's lactation. Less casein/lactose, but still fairly similar. So along these lines, is consuming butter against the laws of nature?

Not necessarily. To me there’s a different in that it has been processed to separate most of the milk proteins from it and you are left with mostly fat and water. It’s along the lines of taking things that aren’t so good raw but adding a few steps (like soaking or fermenting – even cooking) to make them more suitable for eating/drinking. So in this case steps are taken to convert something that is not ideal for the body and making it usable. So while milk the raw ingredient in butter, it's not milk and there’s practically none left in it once it’s made into butter.

 

[Altair]

I agree, the idea of it is pretty sick. And for the majority of people, all dairy is a no-no. But when it comes to respecting the laws of nature, butter also falls under the category of consuming products of another animal's lactation. Less casein/lactose, but still fairly similar. So along these lines, is consuming butter against the laws of nature?

Not necessarily. To me there’s a different in that it has been processed to separate most of the milk proteins from it and you are left with mostly fat and water. It’s along the lines of taking things that aren’t so good raw but adding a few steps (like soaking or fermenting – even cooking) to make them more suitable for eating/drinking. So in this case steps are taken to convert something that is not ideal for the body and making it usable. So while milk the raw ingredient in butter, it's not milk and there’s practically none left in it once it’s made into butter.

I agree. There are only miniscule amounts of casein in butter (if at all) and casein appears to be the main culprit.

 

[Voyageur]

I agree, the idea of it is pretty sick. And for the majority of people, all dairy is a no-no. But when it comes to respecting the laws of nature, butter also falls under the category of consuming products of another animal's lactation. Less casein/lactose, but still fairly similar. So along these lines, is consuming butter against the laws of nature?

Not necessarily. To me there’s a different in that it has been processed to separate most of the milk proteins from it and you are left with mostly fat and water. It’s along the lines of taking things that aren’t so good raw but adding a few steps (like soaking or fermenting – even cooking) to make them more suitable for eating/drinking. So in this case steps are taken to convert something that is not ideal for the body and making it usable. So while milk the raw ingredient in butter, it's not milk and there’s practically none left in it once it’s made into butter.

I agree. There are only miniscule amounts of casein in butter (if at all) and casein appears to be the main culprit.

I know when making Ghee butter, what falls out when straining (the remnants) looks pretty awful, and although it is not a great amount, it's a good separating/purifying process to take.

 

[LQB]

I agree, the idea of it is pretty sick. And for the majority of people, all dairy is a no-no. But when it comes to respecting the laws of nature, butter also falls under the category of consuming products of another animal's lactation. Less casein/lactose, but still fairly similar. So along these lines, is consuming butter against the laws of nature?

Not necessarily. To me there’s a different in that it has been processed to separate most of the milk proteins from it and you are left with mostly fat and water. It’s along the lines of taking things that aren’t so good raw but adding a few steps (like soaking or fermenting – even cooking) to make them more suitable for eating/drinking. So in this case steps are taken to convert something that is not ideal for the body and making it usable. So while milk the raw ingredient in butter, it's not milk and there’s practically none left in it once it’s made into butter.

I agree. There are only miniscule amounts of casein in butter (if at all) and casein appears to be the main culprit.

I know when making Ghee butter, what falls out when straining (the remnants) looks pretty awful, and although it is not a great amount, it's a good separating/purifying process to take.

Same here voyageur - when I make ghee from butter, I do about two gallons at a time. I get a large amount of the white proteins that are skimmed from the surface. More falls to the bottom of the pot. These proteins are definitely denatured due to the heat applied.

The collected foamy white stuff that is skimmed from the top actually smells pretty good. So, years ago I did an experiment with it. I took a very large bowl of it to a group of farm pigs here. These pigs eat just about anything, but when given this white protein - not a single pig would touch it. Finally, I had to wash this stuff out of their feed trough.

 

[Laura]

Regarding the different diets and concern with microbiomes and all that, I came across this:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160411133952.htm

Can more fiber restore microbiome diversity?

Date: April 11, 2016
Source:
Cell Press
Summary:
Scientists are pushing to restore human health in Western countries by changing our diet to restore the microbial species lost over the evolution of Western diet. Researchers advocate for strategically increasing dietary fiber intake as one path forward in regaining microbial biodiversity. ...

Earlier this year, Stanford University's Justin Sonnenburg found that mice fed a typical Western diet (high in fat and carbohydrates and low in fiber) transferred a lower diversity of beneficial microbial species to future generations. The re-introduction of the microbes' preferred fiber at that stage did not result in a return of some (good) species, indicating that extinctions had occurred in only a few generations.

Walter and co-author Edward Deehan, his PhD student, are concerned that a dramatic shift away from a diet similar to the one under which the human-microbiome symbiosis evolved is a key factor in the rise of non-communicable disorders like obesity.

"There is a lot of epidemiological evidence that fiber is beneficial, and food products containing dietary fiber have FDA-approved health claims for both colon cancer and coronary heart disease. There is also quite a bit of clinical evidence (although it is less consistent)," Walter says. "The most pressing issue at the moment that neither consumption of fiber in society nor the doses used in clinical research are high enough."

Walter has noticed that often researchers evaluating fiber doses in diets and health outcomes do so with "doses of fiber that [he] would consider physiologically irrelevant. Most of these studies use 5-15 grams of fiber; I would not think that these amounts would be actually beneficial," he says.

People living in non-industrialized societies have an average intake of fiber that is much higher than the low norms of Western societies. The authors note the recent work from the Stephen J.D. O'Keefe lab in Nature Communications (doi:10.1038/ncomms7342) in which modern African-Americans were given a traditional South-African diet that contained 55 grams of daily dietary fiber and had improved markers for colon cancer within two weeks.

In their Commentary, the authors propose a concerted effort by scientists, food producers, policy makers, and regulatory groups to address the fiber gap. They emphasize that clinical assessments of different fiber types and fiber-enriched foods on microbiome outcomes are needed.

Jens Walter also asserts that the challenge of restoring diverse gut inhabitants will be best met with regulatory policies that are specific to food, and not just the same as those for drugs. "To have a regulatory environment that makes it extremely hard to obtain health claims for food substances is very detrimental," says Walter. He is hopeful that regulatory policies will change to encourage innovative research on disease prevention by modulating the diverse microbial communities humans have evolved with and the ways our diet shapes them and by extension, all of us.

The problem is, I think, that just adding the fiber doesn't always mean that you get your extinct critters back. And if you add the fiber without the critters, it can only make you sick. So I think that one has to do both: add back fiber to feed the critters and add back a diversity of critters.

 

[Keyhole]

That's pretty fascinating. Improved markers in two weeks! Agree that fibre is probably only beneficial where there is not dysbiosis.

On the subject of feeding and enabling a healthy microbiota, my take on it is that proper testing is pretty crucial. I think for many of us, taking probiotics can be useless if there are parasites occupying the gut and there is ongoing dysbiosis. In some cases, it can be equivalent to throwing money down the toilet. And in real severe cases of imbalance/parasite, even enemas may not do the trick. I have decided to bite the bullet and fork out the money for some proper testing from a company called Genova Diagnostics, because I feel like I am wasting my money on supplements and completely shooting in the dark with no direction. The particular test is called "GI Effects" and measures fat ,protein + carb digestion and ab/malabsorption along with parasitology and bacteriology which measures the levels of beneficial/pathogenic bacterial flora, and inflammation/leaky gut markers.

One of my friends functional GI test results came back and showed that he not only had several parasites, but also had an overgrowth of Saccharomyces Bouladi! This is the probiotic species which is recommended to many people for its benefits and for healing the gut. However, in this particular case, taking Saccharomyces Bouladi probiotic supplements would have been one of the worst things that could be done and would have made things worse! This was a shocker to say the least.

Should hopefully receive my results in a week or two, so will post them up when they arrive.

 

[Keyhole]

Heres an interesting article on PUFA's effect on the thyroid gland and function. In short, it seems to block thyroid function on every level.

Are you eating the absolute worst food for your thyroid?

Whether you realize it or not, you most likely are. In fact, 99% of people today, hypothyroid or not, are currently consuming this food (in one form or another) daily without realizing that they are sabotaging their own thyroid health.

Why?

For starters, it’s hidden in almost everything you eat. But here’s the real kicker. Doctors, nutritionists, and even other health “experts” will tell you that this food is “essential” to your health. How wrong could they be?

Now, Dr. Raymond Peat has been outspoken regarding the dangers of this food for decades. However, I never realized just how dangerous it was until I began to look at the research, a little of which I’m about to share with you in just a second. The reason this type of food is so devastating to your thyroid is because it blocks your thyroid function at all five levels of your Thyroid Hormone Pathway.

Take a look at the infographic below:

This infographic shows all five levels of your Thyroid Hormone Pathway.

Here are the full effects that this type of food has on your thyroid function:

• Blocks your thyroid gland from releasing thyroid hormone.
• Blocks your thyroid hormone transport proteins from carrying and delivering thyroid hormone to your cells.
• Blocks your liver from converting T4 thyroid hormone into the active T3 thyroid hormone that your cells need.
• Blocks your active T3 thyroid hormone from binding to your thyroid hormone cell receptors.
• Blocks your cells from being able to metabolize/use active T3 thyroid hormone.
• This is extremely important to understand because… all of these blockages prevent you from getting active T3 thyroid hormone to your cells, and prevents your cells from using what little active T3 thyroid hormone they do have available.

And as I always say…

If you can’t get thyroid hormone to your cells, or your cells can’t use thyroid hormone, then it doesn’t matter how much thyroid medication you use… you’ll always be hypothyroid.”

So, what exactly is this dangerous food?

It’s actually a subset of fats called polyunsaturated fats, or PUFAs for short. Some of these fats are oftentimes referred to as “Essential Fatty Acids” (EFAs) because they were once believed to be essential in the human diet. Yet, they are NOT essential at all, even though they are still named such. In fact, many research studies have shown that these fats contribute to a number of health issues and diseases, including hypothyroidism. I’m going to show you exactly how these PUFAs are sabotaging your thyroid health and what you can do help save your thyroid.

1. PUFAs Block Your Thyroid Gland

Your body depends on enzymes, called proteolytic enzymes, needed to release the stored thyroid hormone within your gland into your bloodstream.

Studies, such as the one below, have shown that PUFAs can strongly inhibit various proteolytic enzymes, thereby directly blocking your thyroid gland from releasing the thyroid hormone you need.

PUFAs, along with excess estrogen, are two common causes of low T4 levels found during routine thyroid lab testing.

Inhibition of chymase activity by phosphoglycerides.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3882053

“Phosphatidic acid containing an unsaturated fatty acid, such as dioleoyl phosphatidic acid, caused the same extent of inhibition as natural phosphatidic acid from bovine brain, but was 20 times more inhibitory than phosphatidic acid containing a saturated fatty acid, such as distearoyl phosphatidic acid.”

2. PUFAs Block Your Thyroid Hormone Transport Proteins

Once thyroid hormone is released from your thyroid gland, it must be transported to various places in your body by certain thyroid hormone transport proteins.

Studies, including the one below, have shown that PUFAs directly block these transport proteins from carrying and delivering both T4 and T3 thyroid hormones to your cells.

This means that not only can’t you delivery active T3 thyroid hormone to your cells, you can’t deliver adequate inactive T4 thyroid hormone to your liver to be converted into the active T3 thyroid hormone that your cells need.

Effect of long-chain fatty acids on the binding of thyroxine and triiodothyronine to human thyroxine-binding globulin.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2869786

“The results indicate that the unsaturated long-chain fatty acids are potent inhibitors of thyroxine binding to thyroxine-binding globulin, whereas the saturated fatty acids have little or no effect on thyroxine binding.”

3. PUFAs Block Your Conversion of T4 into Active T3 Thyroid Hormone

If your thyroid gland can release adequate T4 thyroid hormone, and your transport proteins can deliver that thyroid hormone to your liver, your liver must still convert that T4 into the active T3 thyroid.

In order for your liver to perform this conversion, it requires another enzyme called deiodinase enzyme.

Yet, studies have shown that PUFAs strongly inhibit this enzyme, directly blocking the conversion of thyroid hormone in your liver.

This is a common cause for low T3 levels, even when T4 levels are adequate, on routine thyroid lab testing.

Evidence for an inhibitor of extrathyroidal conversion of thyroxine to 3,5,3′-triiodothyronine in sera of patients with nonthyroidal illnesses.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2857729

“Doses (in micromoles) causing 50% inhibition in different experiments varied between 0.2-0.52 for arachidonic acid, 0.3-0.56 for linolenic acid, 0.38-0.40 for linoleic acid, and 0.8-0.9 for oleic acid. Other lipids had less or no inhibitory activity.”

4. PUFAs Block Your Thyroid Hormone Cell Receptors

Once your liver converts your thyroid hormone into the active T3 form, transport proteins must carry that T3 to your cells.

As we’ve already established, PUFAs directly block these transport proteins.

However, what little active T3 thyroid hormone that does get transported to your cells still needs to bind to the thyroid hormone cell receptors of those cells for your cells to use it.

And research shows that PUFAs also block the binding of your active T3 thyroid hormone to these cell receptors.

Inhibition of nuclear T3 binding by fatty acids.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3173114

“Unsaturated fatty acids were potent inhibitors of the binding of [125I] T3…”

5. PUFAs Block Your Metabolism and Energy Production

We talk a lot about basal body temperature and how it is directly correlated with your thyroid health.

This is why we use it to assess your thyroid function, far more accurately than blood tests today.

(Note: Learn exactly how to test your own thyroid using our free Ultimate Thyroid Testing Protocol. Get it by clicking here.)

But, what’s important to understand is that anything that blocks your metabolism and lowers your basal metabolic rate negatively affects your thyroid health.

And research has shown that PUFAs, or “Essential Fatty Acids”, do just that. They block your metabolism.

Avoiding PUFAs alone has been shown to increase metabolism significantly.

The effect of essential fatty acid deficiency on basal respiration and function of liver mitochondria in rats.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6693988

“Basal respiration in relation to the body weight is significantly increased by EFA deficiency;”
So, as you can see, PUFAs are the worst food for your thyroid as they are involved in directly blocking your thyroid function at every single level.

But…what exactly are PUFAs and how can you protect yourself from them?

4 Simply Ways to Protect Yourself from Thyroid-Suppressive PUFAs

1. Avoid Liquid Cooking Oils and Dressings

PUFAs are found most dangerously concentrated in their oil form, for example:

Vegetable Oil
Soybean Oil
Canola Oil
Sunflower Oil
Peanut Oil
Safflower Oil
Corn Oil
And more…
One way to tell if an oil is highly “unsaturated” is that it will be liquid at room temperature or below.

So, if you put an oil in your refrigerator and it doesn’t solidify, then you should toss it in the garbage where it belongs, unless you plan to use it for non-dietary purposes (PUFAs were originally used as a paint base).

And this goes for other foods and products that contain these oils, such as salad dressings.

The only exception is olive oil, which still contains PUFA, but also contains vitamin E, which provides some protection from the PUFAs negative effects.

2. Avoid Eating Packaged Foods

Because PUFA oils are so cheap, they are used widely in packaged foods, most commonly vegetable oil or soybean oil.

Although they may be easier to prepare, packaged foods are almost always harmful to your thyroid.

And don’t be fooled by “health claims” on package labeling.

Aside from being promoted as “essential” to your health, PUFAs are also still being promoted for their supposed heart health benefits, even though they have been shown to increase your risk of heart disease.

In most cases, if the packaging states various health benefits, it’s likely unhealthy for you and your thyroid health.

3. Limit Eating Out

For many of the same reasons as avoiding packaged foods, you’ll want to limit how often you eat out at restaurants as well.

Restaurants use almost exclusively PUFAs for cooking their foods because they are so cheap.

And the cheaper your meal, the more profit restaurants make.

If you do eat out, it’s best to request your food grilled, and without the use of oil.

4. Protect Yourself with Saturated Fats

Avoiding PUFAs is extremely important in restoring thyroid function.

However, avoiding them is only half the battle.

The other half is protecting yourself by replacing those thyroid-suppressive PUFAs with thyroid-supportive saturated fats, like coconut oil and/or butter.

Ridding Your Body of PUFAs Takes Time (Up to 3 Years)

Even if you remove almost all PUFAs from your diet today you can’t expect immediate results.

The PUFAs you have already eaten have become stored directly in your fat cells.

And the half-life of fat cells is rather long.

As Dr. Raymond Peat points out, it can take up to a year to rid your fat cells of the majority of PUFAs they are currently storing, and up the three years to rid them from the fats stores in your brain.

Although it will take time, the health benefits of ridding yourself of PUFAs are huge.

I highly advise you use all of the recommendations above for protecting yourself against PUFAs.

And while avoiding PUFAs is essential for overcoming your hypothyroidism by unblocking your entire Thyroid Hormone Pathway, there’s still a lot more you can do to help yourself.

There are other factors that are blocking your Thyroid Hormone Pathway too.

Link: http://www.forefronthealth.com/worst-food-thyroid/

 

[Voyageur]

Heres an interesting article on PUFA's effect on the thyroid gland and function. In short, it seems to block thyroid function on every level.

[...]
Link: http://www.forefronthealth.com/worst-food-thyroid/

Thanks for sharing that. I also read with interest the similar SoTT article on PUFA's and noticed the 'PUFA's In Our Diet' included "Chicken and Pork fat" yet with the qualifier of being with "higher levels in grain fed/factory farmed animals." So that made sense, yet it is difficult to sometimes avoid. In purchasing pork from local farmers (trial and error) they are quick to provide details that the animal was raised grass feed and without antibiotics etc. Yet if you don't ask the question of how they were finished they will avoid it. Sometimes they indeed were finished to fatten them up, and that's where the high grains and corn comes in. Frustrating, yet that is how some of the farmers practice their husbandry and see their market requirements.

 

[Keyhole]

I have just found an interesting blog on Peat's philosophy and how it is basically working in conjunction with the modern biophysics findings of today by researchers like Mae Wan-ho and Pollack.

“The dualistic conception of matter as distinct from energy and consciousness is a constrictive illusion put in place by the forces of empire, and the living reality would be freed from the inert husks of the wrongly conceived natural world”
-Ray Peat

The Cosmos is alive, Nature, the Life process is intelligent, and purposeful, the level of wisdom, intelligence and beauty present within the artistry of Creation is breath-taking.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts the work of Mae Wan Ho, specifically her book The Rainbow and the Worm, which discusses the biophysics (I think bio-energetics would be a more accurate term, as energy undoubtedly precedes physical matter) of living organisms. The primary focus of her work has been to show that the organism is not an infernally complex machine, made up of separate parts following instructions and protocols read out from a digital genetic blue-print, but a beautifully coordinated, coherent, living whole, her work like that of Ray Peat draws upon the insights of individuals such as Joseph Needham, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, and Gilbert Ling.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, so following are images of organisms, taken using a pioneering, but non-invasive technique that allows one to see the whole organism down to the molecules that make up its tissues.

“Brilliant interference colours are produced by recombining plane-polarized light split up into slow and fast rays on passing through birefringent liquid crystalline regimes. The principles involved are the same as those used in identifying mineral crystals in geology. Different tissues appear in different colours and varying in intensity according to the orientation and birefingence of the molecules involved as well as their degree of order. The organism – in this case a Drosophila larva about to emerge – is obviously alive. Waves of muscle contraction are sweeping over its body, so one can infer that all the molecular motors and enzymes in the tissues are busily turning and deforming as energy is transformed, so how is it possible that they have a crystalline order? It is most likely because the molecular motions are highly correlated or coherent. As visible light is about 1014 hz, and correlated molecular motions generally less than 1010hz, the tissues will appear indistinguishable from static crystals to the light passing through so long as the movements of their constituent molecules are coherent. With this imaging technique, one can see that the movements of the organism are fully coordinated at all levels from the macroscopic to the molecular, and that is what the coherence of the organism entails.”

That such images can be produced requires that the organism be coordinated at all levels, from the level of the organism, its organs and tissues down to the cells and further to the DNA, all the molecules of the body including the water must be aligned and moving synchronously together.

Ho goes on to state, “the molecules of the tissues maintain their crystalline order when they are actively transforming energy. The evidence suggests that the crystalline order is dependent on energy transformation, so that the more energetic the organism, the more intensely colourful it is, implying that the molecular motions are all the more coherent. This is consistent with ultrasensitive high-speed measurements of contracting muscles which show all the molecular motors cycling in synchronous steps. Similarly, X-ray diffraction reveals that a high degree of supramolecular order is maintained during isometric contraction. The coherence of the organism is therefore closely tied up with its energetic status. To be precise, it is tied up with the way energy is stored and readily mobilized over all its space-time domains.”

This of course correlates with the central thesis of Ray Peat’s work, that…

“energy and structure are interdependent at every level”.

Whilst much of contemporary biology focuses on molecules acting on each other through clunky nuts and bolts, lock and key receptor mechanisms, there are those who can see that this model is utterly stupid. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi was one of these, he saw that attempts to explain “the living state” in terms of clunky interactions of macro-molecules were hopeless and instead, like William Koch emphasized the importance of electronic interactions, including redox reactions, now a well accepted and fundamental phenomenon in the krebs cycle (that Szent-Gyorgyi helped discover) and electron transport chain, fundamental to healthy mitochondrial oxidative metabolism.

It is this energy flow that that holds the structure that supports this flow. Interfere with one and you interfere with the other, as they are ultimately one. Szent-Gyorgyi suggested that proteins acted as conductors throughout the body, but for them to function in this manner they need their electrons to be mobile, but as long as the protein molecule’s electrons are saturated they remain immobile, take out one electron and the protein becomes a highly reactive ‘free radical’, increasing its ability to interact with other molecules and form more complex structures and increasingly novel functions.

Szent-Gyorgyi’s first rule of electrobiology:

“the living state is the electronically desaturated state of molecules, and the degree of development and differentiation is a function of the degree of electronic desaturation”.

Ok, so what de-saturates the protein?

For that a charge transfer must occur and for that an electron acceptor is needed, and an oxidizing agent. But even if one is found, a problem is encountered, the creation of 2 electrically charged radicals, the protein (donor) and the acceptor, both of which would be expected to be highly reactive and incompatible with life, however there is way out, if the 2 molecules link, they retain their reactivity, but no net charge is generated. In electronics this is called ‘doping’ and is used in the creation of semiconductors.

As discussed previously cancer appears to result from interference of energy flow, as evidenced by it’s characteristic redox state and accompanying aerobic glycolysis, this was something that Szent-Gyorgyi felt lay behind the pathology (Szent-Gyorgyi 1977). That a disruption of ordered structure was intimately involved in some way with this redox imbalance was something Szent-Gyorgyi was aware of, and considered a central factor in carcinogenesis, as when a cell’s structure is disrupted and enzymes that would otherwise be bound-up can be released, for example of the glyoxalase system which acts on methylglyoxal (MG) turning it into D-lactic acid. Szent-Gyorgyi suggests MG as a primordial (though weak) electron acceptor from a time when there were much lower levels of oxygen( which is the main electron acceptor that allowed for the development of increasingly more complex life-forms). “Disorder, in cells, may lead to the activation of glyoxalase, the destruction of MG, and the release of proliferation from its inhibition”, as when the activity of MG (or other electron acceptors such as CO2 and O2) is absent the cell’s redox balance shifts towards reduction (excess electrons). Szent-Gyorgyi suggests that methylglyoxal is acting as a ‘doping’ agent through combining with amino groups allowing proteins to function as semiconductors. Semiconduction has been confirmed in proteins (Rosenberg and Postow 1969).

The creation of free radicals is absolutely essential to the living state, it allows for the flow (de-localisation) of electrons, strengthening the forces by which molecules are joined, and the generation of more complex, more differentiated life. Such cohesion interferes with division and proliferation, so cell division requires a temporary loss of cohesion, and with it loss of differentiated structure, this is a return to a more primal functional state focused solely on growth and multiplication.

Carbon dioxide as discussed previously can function similarly to methylglyoxal, and is likely the more primal ‘doping’ agent facilitating semiconduction in proteins, through bonding to amino groups forming carbamino groups, increasing coherence, it is the agent that facilitates oxygen delivery in the body allowing for energetically efficient oxidative metabolism, CO2 breathes oxygen into us.

Carbon dioxide is something truly wondrous, it is more essential for life than oxygen, likely acting as the original bio-electric doping agent / cardinal adsorbent / kosmotrope, within more complex life forms it allows for the release and use of oxygen, which in turn facilitates greater energy flow through organisms allowing for the generation of ever more complex and individuated forms of Life, further these organisms as a result of their oxidative metabolisms produce CO2, which further increases coherency of mitochondrial energy production, increases blood flow and oxygen delivery, having the potential when unimpeded by de-cohering influences to birth ever more holonic biopsychic states.

This arrangement is astounding, the Life process is a Living Fountain, that through the most beautiful reciprocal feedback loops is innately self-evolving / self perfecting. Such intelligent arrangements occur throughout Life,

“… ‘Herring gulls’ have a red patch on their beak. This red patch has an important meaning, for the gull-feeds its babies by going out fishing and swallowing the fish it has caught. Then, on coming home, the hungry baby gull knocks at the red spot. This elicits a reflex of regurgitation in mama, and the baby takes the fish from her gullet. All this may sound very simple, but it involves a whole series of most complicated chain reactions with a horribly complex underlying nervous mechanism of the knocking baby and that of the regurgitating mother. All this had to be developed simultaneously, which, if a random mutation, has the probability of zero. I am unable to approach this problem without supposing an innate ‘drive’ in living matter to perfect itself.” (Szent-Gyorgyi 1977b).

For evolution to unfold with such intelligence, intelligence / consciousness must be present at all levels from quark to quasar, carbon dioxide is the Breath of Life, and serves within the Gaian biosphere as a prime coordinator of the evolutionary process.

The energy expressed in this process is Love, how could it be anything else? The totality of the Living Kosmos conspires in nurturing our evolution, to be truly coherent within such a system is to share in the will of that Heavenly conspiracy.

References

Ho M-W, (2008), The Rainbow and the Worm: the physics of organisms 3rd Edn, World Scientific, Singapore.

Ho M-W, (1995), Bioenergetics and the Coherence of Organisms, Neuronetwork World, 5, pp. 733-750

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/prague.php

Rosenberg B, and Postow E, (1969), Semiconduction in proteins and lipids-its possible biological import, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 158, pp. 161-190.

Szent-Gyorgyi A, (1977), The Living State and Cancer, Biophysics, 74(7), pp. 2844-2847.

Szent-Gyorgyi, Albert. 1977. Drive in Living Matter to Perfect Itself, Synthesis 1, 1(1), pp. 14-26.

For more information on carbon dioxide and its electronic interactions with proteins and central importance in biology take a look at this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZkGxrntmTE

The Biology of CO2 with Ray Peat.

Images from: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/lab.php

Quantitative Image Analysis of Birefringent Biological Materials – latest research

 

[Keyhole]

Another one of the blogs which has some interesting points about breathing and CO2.

So long as the (breathing) air stays in the body, it is called life. Death consists in the passing out of the (breathing) air. It is, therefore, necessary to restrain the breath. ~ Hatha Yoga Pradipika

Some terms:

Bohr effect: haemoglobin’s oxygen binding capacity is inversely related to carbon dioxide concentrations, meaning that without CO2 oxygen cannot be released into tissues, as it cannot be released from the haemoglobin molecule.

Haldane effect: deoxygenation of the blood increases its capacity for carbon dioxide.

Mitochondria: cellular organelle, often considered the “energy factory” / “power plant” of the cell.

“What could be more important to understand than biological energy? Thought, growth, movement, every philosophical and practical issue involves the nature of biological energy.” -Ray Peat.

It is often claimed in Hatha yoga that pranayama is capable of curing all diseases (though improper practice may cause disease), to a supposedly rational and sceptical westerner believing in such things as viral diseases, autoimmune diseases, and genetic diseases, this may seem an outrageous claim however there are reasons to believe that this claim is actually quite sound and entirely within the realms of scientific explanation, admittedly much of the science required to explain it draws on the work of scientists whose work has been marginalised by the corporate pseudoscience which has become the norm in today’s “civilisation”.

Many studies demonstrate an association between chronic hyperventilation / increased respiratory volumes and multiple diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, epilepsy (see the site http://www.normalbreathing.com). This hyperventilation increases the loss of carbon dioxide, which is far from being a waste product of respiration, the human organism in health maintains a carbon dioxide level of around 7%, atmospheric carbon dioxide is at 0.036-0.039%, an enormous difference.

One of the most easily identified mechanisms underlying these observations is inhibition of the Bohr effect, whereby haemoglobin’s oxygen binding capacity is inversely related to carbon dioxide concentrations, so high carbon dioxide concentrations produced as a result of efficient oxidative metabolism allows for oxygen release where it is needed, at least when the system is functioning in an organised manner. When someone hyperventilates they breathe out large amounts of carbon dioxide and inhibit the Bohr effect, paradoxically over breathing results in decreased cellular respiration, even though the blood may be carrying significant quantities of oxygen. This results in increased rates of glycolysis, an inefficient form of energy (ATP) production, resulting in the formation of lactic acid, this further exacerbates the situation as lactic acid appears to compete with carbon dioxide in the blood resulting in increased losses of carbon dioxide, whereas carbon dioxide inhibits lactate production, some of these effects are likely mediated through acid-base homeostasis (Cohen et al 1990). This is in many respects the respiratory pathology that Otto Warburg noted as the defining feature of cancer, aerobic glycolysis, the production of lactate in presence of oxygen.

This aerobic glycolysis is a fundamental respiratory defect, and occurs whenever the mitochondrial oxidation of pyruvate is inhibited, and there are multiple agents capable of inhibiting this efficient energy production, however they all appear to function in fairly common manner, that is they stimulate inflammation, or cellular swelling and oedema. These agents include estrogen, histamine, bacterial endotoxin, polyunsaturated fatty acids, serotonin, and lactate itself. Anaerobic glycolysis occurring as a result of intense physical exertion is adaptive with those actions of lactate that could be considered pathological in other circumstances acting to assist in the organism’s adaptation to the stress, for example lactate’s stimulation of angiogenesis (Hunt et al 2008) can be seen as a functional signal assisting in bringing increased blood to an area undergoing adaptive growth, of course in other circumstances the signals involved, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), transforming growth factor beta (TGF beta), interleukin-1 (IL-1), and hypoxia-inducible factor (hif-1alpha) are all associated with such pathological conditions as cancer. However that represents a fundamentally out of control situation, in a state of health these signals of inflammation and dedifferentiation are inevitably calmed by the overall coherence of the organism and its environment, the fact that so many chronic inflammatory conditions have become so common today, should, if people were paying attention serve as a warning that our “civilization” is dangerously incoherent.

Ok, so how does this swelling inhibit mitochondrial respiration and what does this have to do with pranayama?

To explain that we are going to have to look at some alternate models of cell physiology. Models such as those proposed in Mae Wan Ho’s The Rainbow and the Worm (2008), Gerald Pollack’s Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life (2001), and yes, of course the work of Ray Peat. They present a view of physiology and the organism that is oddly enough Living, massively interconnected doing away with deranged ideas such as the interactions of enzymes and substrates through processes of random diffusion, and models of ion partitioning that require fatty bi-layer membranes with ever increasing membrane channels and pumps, powered by infinite ATP Androids dancing (robot style, obviously) on receptor heads. Estimates suggest, despite the efforts of funky androids, these imaginary pumps and channels simply cannot be provided with enough energy to function as they are claimed to based on current popular models. Instead of the bizarre infernally complex mechanistic “biological” models currently popular with interactions mediated through specific lock and key mechanisms, diseases often being seen as defects in very specific mechanisms. An alternative presents a model wherein intracellular (and extracellular) water is structured by its electronic interactions with proteins into gel-like liquid-crystalline arrays.

When the cell swells inappropriately this liquid crystalline matrix is disrupted, and communication and energy flow through the cell is also disrupted, mitochondria are left unable to function and the cell is left with no choice but to produce ATP (typically thought of as the energy molecule) via glycolysis. Within this model a commonality in disease origin is this disruption of structure and coherence and the concomitant inhibition of energy flow.

One area where the liquid crystalline nature of the living substance is readily apparent is the lens of the eye, where coherent structure is absolutely essential to its biological function, evidence for the interaction of coherence and metabolically efficient energy flow can be seen in studies demonstrating increased lactate in cataracts (areas of opacity within the lens), suggesting that interference in energy flow disrupts structure and / or disrupted structure inhibits energy flow resulting in the more primitive glycolytic metabolism, the disrupted structure decreases transparency, further cataracts are less common at higher altitudes suggesting the possible involvement of the Haldane effect and increased retention of carbon dioxide caused by the decreased oxygen at high altitude (Brandt et al 1982).

Ray Peat suggests that the effect carbon dioxide has on haemoglobin, the conformation change that allows for the release of oxygen into tissues is a general electronic effect, and that carbon dioxide is capable of acting similarly on other proteins, that in the words of Gilbert Ling carbon dioxide is a “cardinal adsorbent”, that is a substance exerting a powerful controlling influence on the protein conformation and the associated water structure, acting to structure water in the cell eliminating swelling and oedema, restoring order and coherence to the excited cell.

Evidence for carbon dioxide’s capacity to act in way that restores order and coherence to the cellular structure can be seen in its capacity to protect the brain from hypoxia (Vannucci et al. 1995), inhibit formation of ROS (Kogan et al. 1997), stabilise mast cells inhibiting histamine release (Strider et al. 2010), stabilising nerve cells (Krnjevic et al. 1965), its inhibition of lactate formation (Cohen et al. 1990). These attributes (especially the inhibition of ROS and lactate) suggest that carbon dioxide is acting to optimize energy production, preventing electron leakage during redox reactions, favoring efficient coherent mitochondrial oxidative metabolism. The use of carbonic anhydrase inhibitors in reducing tumor growth supports the importance of carbon dioxide as a fundamental regulator of metabolism (Supuran and Scozzafava 2000).

Carbon dioxide has many other physiological actions including, vasodilation (Foëx and Ryder 1979), given this it is obvious then that hyperventilation would lead to hypertension and other circulatory diseases, as well as playing a role in the aetiology of neurodegenerative diseases, both through its promotion of circulation, and optimizing mitochondrial function, both of which will be inhibited by hyperventilation. CO2 is also involved in broncodilation (van den Elshout et al. 1991), and muscle relaxation (Hoyle 1960). Carbon dioxide appears to play a role in bone mineralization, and whilst metabolic acidosis has some associations with bone loss, respiratory acidosis (high CO2) does not show the same associations and may be protective (Bushinsky et al. 1993). Perhaps this would explain the stories of yogis and internal martial artists having strong bones. Carbon dioxide seems to play a key role in the secretion of hydrochloric acid by the stomach (Davies 1951), this supports the assertion that pranayama increases ‘the digestive fire’. Carbon dioxide protects against lung injury both prophylactically and therapeutically (Laffey et al. 2003, Salmon and Hotchkiss 2007).

Yandell Henderson (1940) saw that:

“Carbon dioxide is the chief hormone of the entire body; it is the only one that is produced by every tissue and that probably acts on every organ.”

However I suspect even this is massively understating things, carbon dioxide is something truly miraculous, Henderson also called carbon dioxide “the breath of life”, this phrase represents a much clearer and more accurate understanding of CO2, and it’s importance to biology. For carbon dioxide to have so many effects on physiology it must be interacting with our physiology in a fundamental way, the suggestion that it is a “cardinal adsorbent” or perhaps a “kosmotrope” seems reasonable.

Given this central importance of CO2 in biology, as well as the increased respiratory rates reported in many chronic diseases it should be becoming apparent how pranayama may very well be a panacea.

If the cancer cell is used as a paradigmatic example of a cell in a disordered chaotic condition, wherein the swelling characteristic of this disorder is produced by its overly reduced state (having an excess of electrons, and hence being alkaline), carbon dioxide is capable of acting as a Lewis acid and withdrawing electrons from the excited proteins, the oxygen delivery facilitated by carbon dioxide further resolves this condition by restoring healthy oxidative metabolism.

Further evidence for the centrality of carbon dioxide as a fundamental mediator of the life force can be seen in its essentiality for organisms that can survive without oxygen, but who become incapable of multiplication when deprived of carbon dioxide (Rahn 1941), this suggests that carbon dioxide may be more fundamental to life than oxygen.

Ray Peat in the article "Mitochondria and Mortality" suggests that carbon dioxide acts in some way to call mitochondria into existence, suggesting the possibility that carbon dioxide through its alteration of the shape and electrical affinities of haemoglobin and other proteins, increases the stability of the mitiochondrial coacervate, causing it to recruit additional proteins from its environment and its own synthetic machinery to grow or multiply. To support this proposition Dr. Peat points to the effects of increased thyroid hormone and the effects of high altitude on increasing mitochondria, thyroid acting to increase metabolism and hence increasing carbon dioxide production and high altitude acting via the Haldane effect whereby deoxygenation of the blood increases its capacity for carbon dioxide.

If Ray is right and carbon dioxide does act to call mitochondria into existence then the implications for understanding the practice of pranayama are profound, whilst some hyperventilatory pranayamas exist (bhastrika and kapalabhati) in all the traditional texts of Hatha Yoga the emphasis is placed on hypoventilation:

So long as the (breathing) air stays in the body, it is called life. Death consists in the passing out of the (breathing) air. It is, therefore, necessary to restrain the breath. ~ Hatha Yoga Pradipika

Then let the intelligent student close with his right thumb the pingala (the right nostril), inspire air through the Ida (the left nostril), and keep the air confined—suspend his breathing—as long as he can; and afterwards let him breathe out slowly, and not forcibly, through the right nostril. ~ Shiva Samhita

Many of the pranayamas used in hatha yoga share a common factor: they work in some way to slow and reduce standard unconscious breathing, for example nadi shodanna, alternates the breathing between each nostril and whilst this may produce additional subtle effects it acts to reduce airway size so slowing the rate at which air can be inhaled and exhaled, the gentle contraction of the base of the throat used in Ujayi also serves to restrict airway size, breath retention in general will obviously reduce breathing.

This hypoventilation will induce a mild hypercapnic condition (increased Carbon dioxide), this increased carbon dioxide will improve oxygen delivery throughout the body, through the Bohr effect as well as through carbon dioxide’s vasodilatory effects, stabilise nerve cells, decrease inflammation through a number of mechanisms including stabilising mast cells inhibiting histamine and serotonin release. Further if Ray Peat is correct potentially increasing mitochondria and hence increasing the Generative Energy available to an individual, this increased metabolic energy is available both physically and mentally, with greater energy available an individual is capable of a higher level of function. This increase in mitochondrial activity is capable of increasing production of various protective steroid hormones including the foundational hormones that are also neuroactive, pregnenolone, progesterone and DHEA as all of these are produced within the mitochondria. High levels of these hormones are associated with the fluid resiliency of youth, optimising mitochondrial function through pranayama should keep their production high.

Warning, things are about to get Super-Kooky!!

There is reason to believe that when metabolism is truly optimum, and the whole organism is in state of deep harmonic coherence, it is capable of setting up mutually reinforcing positive feedback loops, for example increased retention of CO2 through pranayama increases blood flow and mitochondrial oxidative metabolism, increased mitochondrial metabolism means greater production of progesterone and pregnenolone which can improve thyroid function, thyroid increases CO2, increasing mitochondrial efficiency, blood flow and further stimulates production of pregnenolone, progesterone and DHEA, massively increasing Generative Energy available that spontaneously heals disease and increases the overall coherence and energy available for realisation of one’s dharma.

The possibility of such feedback loops suggests that we are capable of becoming (if we aren’t already to at least some extent) “over-unity” beings, and lends support to stories of yogis living hundreds or even thousands of years needing little or no food.

Further it is possible that carbon dioxide is the key agent involved in the ‘opening of the nadis’ that can be experienced during pranayama, these are streaming bio-plasmic currents running through the body, there are often said to be 72,000 of them, with three emphasized, Ida and Pingala, and most important Sushumna. Ray Peat talks about CO2 as “greasing” the energy pathways in the cell and mitochondria, I suspect given its affinity for forming carbamino groups it is capable of performing a similar function throughout the body, and that it is this, that when CO2 levels are high enough and the yogi has entered a state of kevala kumbhaka, opens the channels, of course this is speculation, and is a jump that I am making, I may be mistaken.

If things are so then even the seemingly extreme case of Chaurangi, who is said to have regenerated his hands and feet (they were chopped off by a wicked step mother) after 12 years of pranayama practice, appears within the realms of possibility. This no doubt sounds crazy to many as it is so far outside the realm of our typical experience, but many animals are capable of regenerating limbs, including, axolotls and salamanders, why should this be so for some and not others? LV Polezhaev (1972) a biologist who studied regeneration notes theories that regenerative failure was a result of weakening of morphogenetic fields, evidence can also be found suggesting significant bioelectrical current and field effects in influencing regeneration (Borgens et al. 1979). If CO2 acts as a “kosmotrope”, increasing coherent energy flow then it is inevitably also strengthening the energetic field phenomena that undoubtedly play a key role in life processes. The possibilities are totally awesome!

Thyroid plays an essential role in stimulating oxidative metabolism and hence increasing C02, thyroid is capable of increasing mitochondria, hypothyroidism is associated with decreased mitochondria and biochemical and structural differences in mitochondria (Jakovcic et al. 1978). Hypothyroidism results in physical and mental fatigue, compensatory increases in stress hormones such as adrenalin and cortisol.

In our present environment we have been exposed to numerous anti-metabolic agents that inhibit thyroid function, including estrogens (via pollution of water supplies from birth control pills as well as industrial xenoestrogens), fluoride, polyunsaturated fats (both omega 3 and 6, avoid them both), and radioactive pollution.

Thyroid appears to play a key role in differentiation, maturation and individuation, this may be due in part to the increase in CO2 levels that increased oxidative metabolism brings about, evidence for this can be seen in an experiment where tadpoles treated with T4 and T3 prematurely metamorphose into tiny frogs, whilst those that have been made hypothyroid simply become oversized tadpoles (Gudernatsch 1912).

 

[Keyhole]

Here's another:

“Energy and structure are interdependent, at every level” ~ Ray Peat

It is my intention here to show that the basic problem of carcinogenesis, that is the origin of cancer in the organism, has been understood, not only this, that following from the understanding of cancer’s origin comes knowledge of how to prevent and reverse the cancer process. Much of this draws upon the ideas presented in works such as Mae-Wan Ho’s The Rainbow and the Worm (2008), Gerald Pollack’s Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life (2001), and of course the visionary work of Ray Peat. These individuals all present a view of physiology and the organism that is massively interconnected doing away with ideas such as the interactions of enzymes and substrates through processes of random diffusion, and models of ion partitioning that require ever increasing membrane channels and pumps that according to estimates simply cannot be provided with enough energy to function as they are claimed to based on current models, even when the cell’s energy has been depleted through metabolic poisons and oxygen deprivation for 8 hours, no changes in sodium or potassium could be detected (Pollack 2001).

Instead they present a model wherein intracellular (and extracellular) water is structured by its electronic interactions with proteins into gel-like liquid-crystalline arrays. In such a model every aspect of cell / organism function will be influenced by the degree of internal order present, and this internal order would be essential to efficient and coherent energy flow. This model based around the insight that biology is, well, biological, organic, living, it stands in stark contrast to the current popular “biological” machine metaphor that views organisms and cells as mechanisms that can be taken apart and analysed in terms of ever increasing lock and key type receptor mechanisms, where corporations believe they can tweak genomes with impunity, and declare life their product to be patented and sold. This view of life as a machine has not only been used to justify the insanity of genetic engineering, it has stunted the development of medicine. It is especially odd that so many alternative / complementary practitioners seem to uncritically accept this deranged mechanical view of Life.

To the understand cancer we need to think coherently about life and exactly what cancer is; for the most part following from the mechanical view of life they hold orthodox medicine and biology tend to view cancer as a sort of evil genetic mutant, something whose identity has diverged so radically from the host organism where the only solution remaining is to kill the mutant cancer monster. However not everyone has accepted this view of cancer many scientists have looked at cancer as a problem involving both morphogenetic disruption and impaired metabolic energy generation, or a stagnation of energy flow.

When I use the phrase energy flow, which is the sort of thing that causes so-called sceptics to ‘roll their eyes’ at its apparent “woo-ness”, I’m referring in part to redox reactions and hence the cyclic flow of electrons. These redox reactions are the source of energy for biology, reduction refers to the gaining of an electron by a chemical species, and oxidation to the loss of an electron, such transfers are the core of the Krebs (AKA citric acid / TCA) cycle and the electron transport chain. As will be seen cancer (and other diseases) display evidence of imbalances in redox states when compared to healthy cells, the idea popular in alternative and traditional medicine that disease is caused by stagnation of energy flow is perhaps not quite as wacky, as some would like to claim.

Whilst conventional theories of carcinogenesis accept the importance of environmental influences, appeal is still made to them acting through so-called oncogenes, triggering genetic mutations that then lead to cancer, however the facts of individual cell re-differentiation and spontaneous remission of cancer, suggests that these ordering or disordering processes are interconnected at multiple levels and that this emphasis on cancer genes is mistaken.

Cancer cells differ from non-cancer cells in a number of ways, including their degree of differentiation, this degree of differentiation is used when grading cancer cells, the more undifferentiated the cancer cell the more likely the cell is grow, multiply and spread quickly.

This dedifferentiated state of cancer can be seen as a fundamentally chaotic condition. Otto Warburg observed that cancer occurred alongside the problem of aerobic glycolysis, this would tend to support the observation that disruption of structure (cancer cells are known to contain more water than non-cancerous cell, it allows them to be seen on MRI scans) interferes with efficient energy flow, resulting in impairment of mitochondrial respiration, further simple osmotic swelling is known to inhibit mitochondrial respiration and stimulate glycolysis (Levko et al. 2000). The significance of lactic acid production as a key feature of cancer is further underlined by the use of the drug dichloracetate (DCA) as an experimental cancer treatment, DCA inhibits the production of lactic acid by cancer cells, restoring the activity of pyruvate dehydrogenase along with mitochondrial function and increasing apoptosis (Michelakis et al. 2010).

Another trait of cancer cells are differences in redox states when compared to healthy cells, this can be seen most obviously in the ratio of NAD+/NADH, with cancer cells having greater amounts of NADH (Argiles and Lopez-Soriano 1991, Pelicano et al. 2006). Other redox pairs such as GSH/GSSG also demonstrate imbalances in favour of the reduced form GSH (Singhal and Vijayavargiya 1983, Boisio et al. 1990). This imbalance in redox states is a direct result of the inhibition of oxidative metabolism. Cancer can be seen as cells in an over reduced state, an alkaline intracellular environment with accompanying metabolic lactic acidosis in the extracellular environment. Yes, that’s right, cancer cells are alkaline (Gerweck and Seetharaman 1996). Associated with this swelling and redox imbalance is the influx of calcium (Ca2+) into the cell, this intracellular calcification is involved in multiple disease pathologies including arteriosclerosis and Alzheimer’s, whilst the soft tissues accumulate calcium the bones lose it.

So to sum up cancer cells are swollen, inflamed cells, lacking distinct differentiation, and metabolically inefficient producing lactic acid, similar cellular states can be found in many other conditions, the various inflammatory conditions, arthritis, colitis, hepatitis, the so-called “autoimmune” conditions, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and many other diseases.

If a range of substances could be identified that tended to move cells towards a less differentiated condition, it might be appropriate to refer to them as “chaotropic” (disorder-making) if they acted in broadly similar ways acting to destabilise cytoskeletal structures, decrease coherence and disrupt energy flow.

If substances that can be broadly described as “chaotropes” exist perhaps it would be possible to identify a range of substances acting in an opposite manner, to generally firm-up the structure (at the cellular level) and increase the coherence of the liquid crystalline organism, improving communication and energy flow, these could be described as “kosmotropic” (order-making). It should be emphasized that these are broad generalisations, specifics will inevitably be more complex, this model, viewing Life in terms of coherence and incoherence is used to enable a person to step back and view the forest.

It appears that both kosmotropic and chaotropic substances can be identified.F In order to further explain the characteristics of chaotropes and kosmotropes, it would be useful to look first at a few substances that fit into these broad categorisations.

The lactic acid produced as a result of glycolysis displays effects that would characterise it as a chaotropic agent. Lactic acid appears to contribute to excitotoxicity and neuronal loss (Xiang et al. 2004), the presence of lactic acid makes cells more susceptible to transformation into cancer cells (Mothersill et al. 1983), Lactic acid stimulates the release of the inflammatory prostaglandin E2 PGE2 (Dawes and Rushton 1994), PGE2 further activates aromatase and the production of estrogen, estrogen induces PGE2 production establishing a vicious cycle (Bulunn et al. 2000).

Estrogen could also be characterised as a chaotropic agent, estradiol is known to disrupt the cytoplasmic microtubule network in both estrogen receptor-positive and –negative cells, suggesting that estrogen is capable of exerting effects independently of any estrogen receptors this has obvious implications for ideas such as selective estrogen receptor modulation (SERM), which are a product of mechanistic, lock and key “biology” (Aizu-Yokota et al. 1994). Estrogen stimulates Ca2+ influx into cells (Zaitsu et al. 2007). Estrogens, including phytoestrogens inhibit thyroid function (Ishizuki et al. 1991). Estradiol increases the release of serotonin and histamine from mast cells (Vliagoftis et al. 1992). Estrogen is implicated in carcinogenesis (Persson 2000), and evidence suggests that it decreases mitochondrial biogenesis (Rodriguez-Cuenca et al. 2007).

Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) are likely chaotropic agents being found in abundance in cold water fish and seeds that germinate during a cool spring after a cold winter evidence for this chaotropic effect includes fish oils (EPA and DHA) increasing intestinal permeability (Dombrowsky et al. 2011), create cellular edema in the brain (Chan et al. 1983), they demonstrate a toxicity to monocyte-macrophages that increases as unsaturation increases, so EPA and DHA demonstrate the greatest toxicity (Hardwick et al. 1997). PUFA exposure in utero results in more undifferentiated breast cells and increased breast cancer risk (Hilakivi-Clarke and Clarke 1998). PUFA and their breakdown products such as 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (HNE) inhibit mitochondrial oxidative metabolism partly through inhibition of pyruvate dehydrogenase (Humphries and Szweda 1998, Bradley et al. 2008, Da Silva et al. 1993).

Other chaotropic agents include various carcinogens, bacterial endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide) and ionising radiation, serotonin (it’s NOT the happy hormone), and paratyhyroid hormone (PTH). What they have in common is a tendency to in-effect raise the structural-temperature of biological water disrupting its coherent order and interfering with energy flow, changing the conformation and association of proteins (such as NF-kB, TNF-a, the COX enzymes, and others) that would other wise be bound up, allowing them to trigger various chain reactions that can spread increasing disorder. It should be stated that our natural endogenous chaotropes are not bad in themselves they have roles to play in processes such as healing and regeneration, through stimulating cell division and multiplication, and through returning cells to a more primal undifferentiated state allowing for plasticity, but when not opposed by kosmotropic agents, the system as whole unravels and chaos spreads.

These kosmotropic agents likely include substances such as carbon dioxide, ATP, and hormones such as thyroid, and progesterone.

Evidence for carbon dioxide’s capacity to act as a kosmotrope can be seen in its capacity to protect the brain from hypoxia (Vannucci et al. 1995), inhibit formation of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), highly reactive molecules containing oxygen produced as a by-product of metabolism (Kogan et al. 1997). Stabilise mast cells inhibiting histamine release (Strider et al. 2010), stabilise nerve cells (Krnjevic et al. 1965), inhibits lactate formation (Cohen et al. 1990). These attributes, especially the inhibition of lactate and ROS, suggest that carbon dioxide is acting to optimize energy production, preventing electron leakage during redox reactions, favouring efficient oxidative metabolism, this property of Carbon dioxide is especially interesting given that Mae Wan Ho speculates that’s ROS may only be produced as a result of decreased coherence of electron transport. Further evidence points to the ability of CO2 to favour the oxidized state of the cell increasing the ratio of NAD+ to NADH (Gyulai et al. 1982).

Additionally studies demonstrating the anti-tumor effects of carbonic anhydrase inhibitors, pharmaceuticals that increase blood and tissue levels of carbon dioxide by inhibiting the actions of enzymes involved in the inter-conversion of carbon dioxide and bicarbonate, point towards the importance of CO2 as a key regulator of coherent metabolism (Supuran and Scozzafava 2000). Hyperventilation shows evidence of inducing increases in tissue permeability, suggesting that CO2 is involved in maintaining tissue integrity (Steurer et al. 1996).

Further CO2 is required for the release of oxygen into tissues, through the Bohr effect, this is a beautiful arrangement, as those tissues that are most metabolically active when healthy will produce more CO2 thus increasing oxygen release, further CO2 acts as a vasodilator, increasing the ease with which blood and oxygen are delivered to tissues, the level of intelligence revealed in this arrangement is truly awesome.

Carbon dioxide has many other actions too numerous to list here but it is interesting that Yandell Henderson (1940) referred to it as “the chief hormone of the entire body”.

Thyroid seems to act as a kosmotrope, its key role as a promoter of oxidative metabolism, and hence also increasing the production of CO2 supports this, thyroid hormones stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis, as well as playing a role in cellular differentiation (Wrutniak-Cabello et al. 2001). Whilst estrogens can inhibit thyroid function, thyroid hormones are capable of increasing the conversion of the potent estradiol to the weaker estrone (Fishman et al. 1965). Thyroid hormones appear to be able to inhibit histamine release as well as reducing edema (Heymann 1999, Sabira et al. 1987). Thyroid hormones play a role in differentiation and maturation at the level of the whole organism, as tadpoles treated with T4 and T3 prematurely metamorphose into tiny frogs, whilst those that have been made hypothyroid simply become oversized tadpoles (Gudernatsch 1912).

Progesterone as the essential hormone of pregnancy suggests itself as a kosmotrope, it has anti-inflammatory activity inhibiting the release of arachidonic acid (Wilson et al. 1986), inhibiting histamine release (Vasiadi et al. 2006), decreasing brain edema (Roof et al. 1996). Progesterone synergizes with the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA and suppressing glutamate excitation (Smith et al. 1987), it protects mitochondrial function and structure (Deniselle et al. 2002). Progesterone inhibits growth and induces apoptosis in cancer cells (Formby and Wiley 1998), inducing differentiation in breast cancer cells (Lin et al. 2003b). Evidence suggests that progesterone increases mitochondrial biogenesis (Rodriguez-Cuenca et al. 2007) opposing many of estrogen’s actions.

Ganoderma lucidum (Reishi / Ling Zhi) a medicinal mushroom, is a likely exogenous kosmotrope based on its multiple protective actions including its anti-inflammatory effects, promotion of differentiation (Cheung et al. 2000), inhibition of ROS (Lee et al. 2001), promotion of phase II liver enzymes (Kim et al. 1999), inhibition of histamine release (Tasaka et al.1988), inhibition of aromatase (Chen et al. 2005), and other effects. The traditional lore concerning Ganoderma, including its Chinese name Lingzhi with its various translations such as “herb of spiritual potency” or “herb/substance of immortality”, along with its categorisation as a shen (Heart-Mind)tonic that calms the mind, support this view.

G lucidum, is by no means the only such kosmotropic substance other likely candidates include Panax ginseng, Rhodiola rosea, likely many if not all Adaptogens.

That cancers are known to undergo spontaneous remission, suggests that the organism has the innate capacity to re-order areas of chaos within itself, experiments in newts whose amputated limbs had cancers grafted onto them, resulted in the newt assimilating the cancer and differentiating it into a new limb, support this view as well as demonstrating field effects in operation (Oviedo and Beane 2009). Given this vital capacity for re-ordering of incoherent tissues the on-going “War on Cancer” with its chemical and nuclear weaponry can be seen as a horrific error of judgement. This attitude of battle is present amongst some alternative practitioners as well, what if we changed our view, seeing cancer as a part of ourselves that has become confused and instead of attempting to kill it we nurtured it back into integrated function?

Any holistic therapeutic that deals with cancer (or any other condition) should, if there is any truth to this model work towards increasing the coherence of the organism through multiple methods, as the coherent flow of energy is key to health, and cancer represents an extreme form of incoherent energy flow that can manifest in much milder forms.

In addition to the use of “herbal” kosmotropes such as G. lucidum, other therapies that should play a major role, include breath work such as yogic pranayama, qigong or Buteyko breathing, these all work towards addressing the chronic hyperventilation that is associated with cancer and other chronic diseases (Travers et al. 2008) and increasing the retention of carbon dioxide, through an emphasis on making the breath as long, slow, and subtle as possible, breathing through the nose (in and out). The importance of optimisation of respiration absolutely cannot be overstated, this is a therapeutic available to everyone, no expensive (and likely useless or even harmful) supplements necessary, a practice that can be incorporated into any cancer therapeutic conventional or otherwise. Breathing is the most fundamental physiological process that can be worked through to modulate both body and mind. Remember, the breath should be as soft and subtle as possible, ideally imperceptible, this for many people may feel mildly uncomfortable inducing a feeling of ‘air-hunger’, the key idea here is breathe less, this may seem counterintuitive, but chronic over-breathing is a contributing factor to multiple dis-eases through the accompanying loss of CO2, which may well be the primal ‘hormone’ of life.

Working on the health of the gastrointestinal tract is another essential component, considering the role of bacterial endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide) in promoting inflammation.

Ensuring good liver function in order to clear endotoxin, estrogen and other toxins, is also important.

Nutritional therapy based around nutrient dense foods, minimising exposure to inflammatory foods/ food elements such as PUFA (both omega 6 and 3), and excess muscle meat. Therapeutic use of short and medium chain fatty acids may also be appropriate, they appear to be able to improve intestinal permeability, cell differentiation, and favour energy production (Bai et al. 2010, Suzuki et al. 2008, St-Onge and Jones 2002), so using coconut oil which is around 60% medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) would be helpful.

Reducing total stress is essential as chronic stress through a variety of mechanisms including things such as the depletion of hormones such as progesterone, pregnenolone and dhea, will push the system ever more deeply into chaotic and incoherent dysfunction.

 

[Keyhole]

This next post is entirely in-line with the hypothesis set forth by Dr Valentine, author of the book I am currently reading called "Human Longevity: Omega-3 Fatty Acids, Bioenergetics, Molecular Biology, and Evolution". It is pretty amazing to see that the whole "oxidative stress" theory of aging is probably only half of the story. From what I understand of the book so far, they are showing that the biggest factor in aging is actually the oxidation of PUFA in the mitochondria. This consistent oxidation causes heaps of damage, which the cell needs to expend most of it's energy stores to repair. However, it does this at the expense of performing other functions. This state leads to a systemic lack of energy at the cellular level, and ultimately rapid ageing and pathology.

"Essential Fatty Acids" may not be so "essential"

“The polyunsaturated fats are universally toxic to the energy producing system, and act as a “misleading signal” channeling cellular adaptation down certain self-defeating pathways.” -Ray Peat

So just in case there are people reading this who don’t know what PUFA are, PUFA stands for polyunsaturated fatty acids, these are liquid oils, they’re liquid because they unsaturated (in 2 or more places), these include sunflower oil, safflower oil, canola /rapeseed oil, hemp seed oil, flax oil, chia seeds, and of course the current darling of the health supplement industry, fish oil. These are the oils commonly called essential fatty acids (EFAs), calling them essential is virtually meaningless as its near impossible to entirely avoid consuming at least some of these (I’ve tried, it requires eating a super boring F.A.D. diet), There is evidence which suggests that it may well be better to seek to avoid PUFA, both omega 6 and 3.

In 1938, a biochemist William Brown volunteered to go six months eating an extremely low-fat diet. He consumed a diet of defatted milk and cottage cheese, sucrose, potato starch, orange juice and some vitamin and mineral supplements. His blood lipids became more saturated and their concentrations of linoleic and arachidonic acids were cut in half. He experienced an absence of fatigue, his high blood pressure returned to normal, and migraines he had suffered from since childhood vanished, his metabolic rate increased and he lost weight, his respiratory quotient increased suggesting greater carbohydrate oxidation, lower respiratory quotients are associated with diabetes. The diet produced no deficiency, and likely corrected a PUFA excess. Six months on a specially prepared laboratory diet, no deficiency, if these fats are essential they’re essential in such tiny amounts that its almost meaningless to call them essential.

Hold on, are you saying we should avoid essential fatty acids?

Yes. “Essential” fatty acids are essentially toxic in warm-blooded oxygen respiring non-hibernating animals.

If you look at where the PUFA are found in nature you’ll find them associated with cold temperatures, for example in fish like sardines swimming around in icy-cold arctic waters, if the sardines had saturated fats they’d probably be solid and inflexible in such cold waters, fish found in the Amazon have highly saturated fats, low in PUFA. The other place you find PUFA in abundance is in nuts and seeds that have to germinate in cool spring after freezing winters. It has been shown that plants can vary the degree of the saturation or unsaturation of their fats in response to the climate they are grown in, soya grown in a tropical environment will have less PUFA than soya grown in a temperate environment (Wolf 1982), this is also why the tropical oils, coconut and palm are so highly saturated. A human being is a walking tropical environment, the fact that we don’t produce omega 3 and 6 PUFA might just be a good thing.


But, but…they’re called essential fatty acids, surely there must be studies that show they’re essential?

The studies that claim to demonstrate the essentiality of PUFA, were carried out around 1929, in rats, further at this time a number of vitamins were unknown, including B6, the need for zinc and some other trace elements was also unknown, Ray Peat has pointed this out, and further shown that the PUFA deficient rats demonstrate a higher metabolic rate and so would require greater amounts of these vitamins and minerals, the PUFA fed rats had lower metabolisms and so could survive on deficient diets. Further in experiments in the 1940’s the “fat deficiency” disease was cured with supplemental B6.

But, there’s thousands of studies in humans showing that fish oil is beneficial, that must mean its essential?

The vast majority of those studies are terrible, there is no adequate control group, typically one group are given fish oil whilst the other are likely eating a diet high in omega 6 PUFA, so yes the fish oil can produce some anti-inflammatory effects, but to really get an idea of what’s going on you’d need an additional group eating an essential fatty acid deficient diet (no omega 3 or 6), such studies are lacking although there are some indications that “essential” fatty acid deficiency produces less inflammation than fish oil supplementation as shown in this study in rats (Ling et al. 2012). Just because a study demonstrates an apparently beneficial pharmacological effect of fish oil does not make fish oil an essential nutrient, given the high intakes of omega 6 oils and their pro-inflammatory effects some short term benefit to fish oil is not surprising, but a similar anti-inflammatory immune suppressive effect can be produced from x-rays, if someone is presenting with chronic inflammation it might just be better to recommend the use of anti-inflammatory substances such as aspirin or herbs such as Salix alba which can inhibit COX and LOX enzymes preventing the formation of inflammatory prostaglandins and suggesting that the person reduce their total PUFA intake.

Ok, so maybe EFAs have been overhyped a little, but why should we avoid them, they’re natural?

Earlier I mentioned about how PUFAs are found in fish and plants living at low temperatures, and are less common in warmer environments, there’s a good reason for this whilst the double bonds (unsaturations) make the oils more flexible they also make them more prone to oxidation, with the highly unsaturated EPA (unsaturated in 5 places) and DHA (unsaturated in 6 places) being the most unstable. Traditionally oils such as flax / linseed and fish oil were used in painting and for making varnishes, their unsaturation makes them react easily with oxygen, heat and light increase this reactivity, and under such conditions they polymerize and harden, great for painting, not so great in your body as they can degrade into lipid peroxidation products such as acrolein, malondialdehyde, hydroxynonenal, crotonaldehyde, ethane, pentane, and the neuroprostanes, many of these are implicated in range of disorders including general mitochondrial inhibition, Alzheimer’s (guess fish oil isn’t so awesome for your brain), and cancer.

PUFA (omega 3 and 6) inhibit pyruvate dehydrogenase, a key enzyme that links glycolysis into the Kreb’s (TCA) cycle (Da Silva et al. 1993). Inhibition of pyruvate dehydrogenase is known to contribute to the Warburg effect, the aerobic glycolysis characteristic of cancer (McFate et al. 2008).

PUFA breakdown products (acrolein, malondialdehyde, hydroxynonenal, crotonaldehyde) inhibit mitochondrial respiration (Humphries et al. 1998, Picklo and Montine 2001).

PUFA (including fish oil) promote cancer (Griffini et al. 1998), high DHA is associated with prostate cancer (Brasky et al. 2011).

Linoleic acid (omega 6) is required for carcinogenesis in some animal models (Ip et al. 1985).

PUFA suppress metabolism, this can be seen most obviously in the elevated metabolisms of lab animals fed an “essential” fatty acid deficient diet, (Burr and Beber 1934), “essential” fatty acid deficiency is associated with increased activity of cytochrome oxidase a fundamental mitochondrial respiratory enzyme (Kunkel and Williams 1951).

Animals fed “essential” fatty acid sufficient diets gain more weight than deficient animals (Rafael et al. 1988).

PUFA inhibit thyroid hormone activity (Clarke and Hembree 1990).

PUFA, LA(omega 6), ALA (omega 3), AA (6), DHA(3) all cause brain swelling, oleic acid (MUFA) and palmitic acid (SFA) do not (Chan and Fishman, 1980).

PUFA cause nervous system damage and impair learning, (Harman et al. 1976).

Neuroprostanes breakdown products of DHA are implicared in Alzheimer’s, they are found in cerebrospinal fluid of Alzheimer’s patients at higher levels than age-matched controls (Roberts et al. 1998).

PUFA, both omega 3 and 6 are involved in atherosclerosis, a study examining fatty acid composition of aortic plaques found a positive association between omega 3 and 6 fatty acids of plaques with adipose tissue content, no association was found for saturated fatty acids (Felton et al. 1994).

PUFA, both omega 3 and 6 impair lung function (Wolfe et al. 2002).

PUFA interfere with insulin sensitivity and increase diabetes risk, a study looking at safflower and fish oil found that both increased fasting blood glucose, the fish oil group had higher blood glucose (Borkman et al. 1989).

PUFA promote liver cirrhosis, saturated fats and cholesterol are protective against liver cirrhosis (Nanji and French 1986). In another study fish oil promoted cirrhosis and saturated fat was found to reverse cirrhosis, whilst ethanol administration was ongoing!! So if you’re going out drinking make sure to eat lots of butter and coconut oil (Nanji et al. 2001).

Omega 3 fats lower endurance in rats (Ayre and Hulbert 1997).

Fish oil lowered mitochondrial activity and increased oxidative stress in… Atlantic Salmon, wow fish oil sucks even for fish (Kjaer et al. 2008).

Omega 3 and 6, especially 3 impair wound healing (Cardosso et al. 2004).

I noted a study above suggesting that essential fatty acid deficiency produces less inflammation than omega 3 supplementation, part of this effect occurs through inducing the synthesis of mead acid an omega 9 family PUFA (unsaturated in 3 places), the presence of mead acid is typically considered to be a marker of “essential” fatty acid deficiency, even when no pathology is present, its synthesis is inhibited by omega 3 and 6 PUFA, there are some animal studies showing anti-inflammatory effects from mead acid supplementation, mead acid because it is only unsaturated in 3 places is more stable than EPA or DHA (Yoshida et al. 2003).

There’s good evidence that PUFA especially the longer chain highly unsaturated AA and DHA accumulate with aging (Tamburini et al. 2004, Nourooz-Zadeh and Pereira 1999).

PUFA shorten lifespan, a number of animal studies show that the degree of unsaturation of tissue fatty acids corresponds inversely with maximum lifespan, i.e. eating lots of “essential” fatty acids will shorten your life (Bajra 2004). Naked mole-rats display unusual longevity for a rodent of their size they live around 28 years similarly sized mice live only 3-4 years. Mole-rats have low DHA (2-6%) in comparison to mice (27-57%), this low DHA means they are less susceptible to peroxidative damage (Mitchell et al. 2007).

In a study in Italy a high PUFA to saturated fat ratio was found to increase all-cause mortality (Solfrizzi et al. 2005).

So in summary PUFA inhibit metabolism, promote cancer, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, contribute to alcoholic liver disease, make you stupid, and generally kill you slowly, you might be thinking that’s not so bad, but wait it gets worse…. Much worse….

A recent study suggests that PUFA contribute to… male pattern baldness, yes prostaglandin D2 inhibits hair growth and is found in higher levels in bald men, its derived from Arachidonic acid (Garza et al. 2012).

I know its difficult to believe fish oil isn’t super-awesome, the stuff’s freakin’ delicious, every time I walk past a health food store it takes a herculean effort of will not to run in and eat a whole bottle of fish oil capsules, those things taste better than gummy bears. Weirdly cats don’t seem to like fish oil, tried feeding a cat some fish oil and she looked at me like I’d lost my mind, cats really like butter though, weird.

But we need essential fatty acids to have flexible cell membranes.

HUMBUG!! There’s likely no such thing as phospholipid bilayer membranes.

 

[Charade]

Here is a video interview with Dr David Perlmutter and Dr Doulliard discussing opposing views about wheat. The basic premise of the book EAT WHEAT is that the lymphatic system becomes clogged with toxins and then the gut is compromised. Dr Doulliard proposes that the lymph system can be unclogged so it drains properly and heal the gut to the point that whole grains are acceptable in moderation and seasonally. His foundation is in the Ayurvedic modality and stresses seasonal eating habits.

I am interested in knowing more about the lymph system and how it works. I wonder if he is a good source for this or if anyone can suggest resources.


The Empowering Neurologist – David Perlmutter, MD and Dr. John Douillard

https://youtu.be/97QtIsMTmW0