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Glyphosate Induced Obesity?

Published on October 3, 2019

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Are you struggling with your weight? Are you eating well and exercising but still not losing weight? Well then, it might be time to consider what’s on or in what you are eating or what you are eating eats. Sound complicated? It’s not. An emerging body of evidence shows a strong link between eating foods sprayed with commercial herbicides and eating meats raised on commercial feedlots (that are born and bred on a cocktail of chemicals) and obesity.

After years of eating highly processed and chemically laden fruits, vegetables and meats, the bacteria in our guts shift radically towards a species that emit what are called endotoxins. These endotoxin releasing bacteria induce inflammation, which then shifts a series biochemical pathways that favor fat storage as a protective and compensatory reaction to the steady state of chemicals coming from our diet and the lack of nutrients contained within these foods. Indeed, what we now call autoimmune reactions, the continued elevation in inflammation and antibodies, may be a result of the food we eat (and the other pharmacological and environmental chemical exposures). It turns out, that the constant state of inflammation many of us find ourselves in is the body’s way of trying to clear those toxins.

With obesity in particular, there have been several interesting studies published over the last couple years providing clear links between chemical exposures and fat storage. Whether the body stores fat or uses fat depends upon the balance of good and bad bacteria in the gut and that balance is predicated heavily upon nutrient availability and toxic exposures. High calorie, low nutrient, chemically dosed foods, shift bacterial communities that increase fat storage and inflammation. Not only that, but since gut bacteria metabolize dietary vitamins and even synthesize vitamins from scratch on their own, the high fat, low nutrient, chemically laden diet downregulates the vitamin producing bacteria, in favor of the more pathogenic and opportunistic bacteria. This further depletes nutrient stores while enhancing inflammation. The cycle becomes very difficult to end, as anyone struggling to lose weight knows all too well. There is hope, however. New research from disparate sources demonstrates how reducing the toxic load and increasing nutrient availability can re-calibrate fat usage and storage parameters.

Gut Bacteria and Obesity

Just a few years ago, researchers from Shanghai, China identified one of the gut bacterial over growths associated with obesity and published their results in a paper entitled: An opportunistic pathogen isolated from the gut of an obese human causes obesity in germfree mice. Called enterobacter clocae, the endotoxin producing bacteria was found overpopulated in the gut of a severely obese patient who was also insulin resistant, hypertensive and suffered from the array of obesity related health issues. The enterobacter clocae pathogens made up 35% of the total bacterial content in this patient’s gut; a huge bacterial load. Knowing that enterobacter emitted endotoxins and that endotoxins were associated with inflammation and insulin dysregulation, the researchers speculated that a reduction in the enterobacter population would correspond with a reduction in weight and the other health issues. They were correct. With a special diet and traditional Chinese herbs, weight loss and health parameters changed along with the reduction in toxic load. After 9 weeks, enterobacter represented only 1.7% of the total gut bacteria and at 23 weeks, .32%. The total weight loss during that period was 50kg or 110lbs.

Could something as simple as reducing the opportunistic enterobacter via diet be the solution to obesity? To answer this question, the researchers went back to lab and designed an experiment to test the hypothesis, only they did it in the reverse. They asked if enterobacter was a causative factor in obesity, could they induce obesity in mice bred specifically to resist excessive weight gain simply by increasing the bacterial load?

From the fecal matter of the obese patient, the researchers isolated the particular strain of enterobacter clocae called B29. They took the B29 and inoculated four groups of seven, germ-free mice; B29 inoculated plus normal diet or high fat diet and non-inoculated normal or high fat diet. Germ-free mice are a strain of mice that are microorganisms free and raised in isolates. They are resistant to obesity even when fed a high fat diet.

One mouse from each of the inoculated groups died immediately after the inoculation indicating the toxic nature of this bacteria. Remember, this strain of bacteria represented 35% of the original patient’s gut bacteria, likely acquired gradually over the course of lifetime. During the first week, all of the inoculated mice lost weight, again indicating the mounting immune response. Anorexia, is often a sign of illness as the body reallocates resources towards fighting an infection.

Subsequently, and after the immediate anorexic responses, both groups of inoculated mice gained excessive weight, whereas the non-inoculated mice did not. The inoculated plus high fat diet group not only gained significantly more weight but expressed higher levels of enterobacter inflammatory markers and insulin resistance showing an interaction between diet and bacterial growth. The researchers speculate that the high fat diet facilitates the transfer of this bacteria to the bloodstream and increases the systemic inflammatory reaction. The inflammation then shifts the body towards fat storage via a range biochemical cascades meant to fight the infection but that also induces other reactions along the way; reactions we consider hallmarks of metabolic disease including high cholesterol, insulin resistance, liver damage, decreased adiponectin (satiety hormone – low adiponection means one is always hungry) and even increased amyloid A proteins associated with Alzheimer’s. This study, albeit small and in need of replication, shows us that when the balance of good to bad bacteria shifts, obesity is induced. It doesn’t tell us, however, how environmental chemicals in and on food impact this bacterial shift. For that we have to go to a couple other reports.

Nutritional Perils of the Western Diet

The Western diet has become a synonymous with highly processed foods that barely resemble actual food in nutrient and DNA composition. Indeed, in our efforts to produce the largest and prettiest produce, we’ve cultivated out 95% of the genetic variation from food crops; reducing to almost nothing the ~200,000 plant metabolites that provide nutrition. To make matters worse, we have substituted nutritionally rich and diverse crops with ones that originate from plant seeds engineered with bacterial RNA and DNA and are laced with glyphosate, adjuvants and other chemicals. In addition, all commercial meat production relies heavily on genetically modified, glyphosate-doused feed to grow the cattle, combined with prophylactic antibiotics, growth hormones and a cocktail of other chemicals that compensate for the deplorable conditions under which Western foods are produced. The genetically modified, chemically laden food stuffs are then sold to the consumer as fruits, vegetables, meats and dairy or processed even further into other food-like products. From beginning to end of the food chain are exposures to chemicals and foreign bacterial DNA that our bodies cannot accommodate and that provide only limited nutrients.

So, in addition to the direct exposure to chemical toxicants, conventionally grown Western foodstuffs also impair health by reducing vital nutrient content required for even the most basic cell functioning. By disrupting the balance between good gut bacteria and bad or pathogenic bacteria conventionally grown further disrupts nutrient availability while increasing inflammation and the cascade of ill-health is set in motion.

Metabolic Starvation in the Face of Obesity

As we’ve covered previously, every cell in the body requires energy to exist and function. That energy comes in the form of mitochondrial adenosine triphosphate or (ATP). The production of ATP requires nutrients as co-factors and for enzyme functioning. Many of these nutrients come from diet and others are produced de novo or from scratch by the bacteria in our gut. Glyphosate grown foods attack both. Glyphosate reduces the nutrient availability of foodstuffs, even in the less processed, presumed healthy fruits and vegetables, while simultaneously killing the good bacteria in our guts. Glyphosate is a potent bactericide that in a perverse twist of design preferentially targets the beneficial bacteria while leaving untouched the opportunistic and pathogenic bacteria, like enterobacter clocae. So while eating a healthy diet might lead to weight loss and improved health outcomes under normal circumstances, when that diet consists of conventionally grown foods, with genetically engineered seeds capable of withstanding the toxic insults of glyphosate and its adjuvants, neither the diet nor the disrupted intestinal flora can produce the nutrients required to enable healthy cellular metabolism. The GM-glyphosate combo induces a state of metabolic starvation and through a number of survival pathways and shifts towards fat storage rather than fat loss as a secondary source of energy.

Critical to this entire equation is the fact that the bactericidal properties of glyphosate disrupt normal gut microflora. Glyphosate directly shifts the balance of power away from the healthy, vitamin and mineral factories that feed the body’s enzymes and mitochondria, towards more pathogenic bacteria that are resistant to glyphosate and may even feed on it, further evoking metabolic starvation. As the bacterial balance continues to shift, disease appears and inflammation ensues. Those diseases are then treated pharmacologically with drugs that also disrupt gut bacteria, deplete nutrient stores and damage mitochondria. The cascade of ill-health becomes more and more difficult to end using traditional approaches. Moreover, where and how disease appears is as much based upon individual predispositions as it is on nutrition and other exposures, making the complexity of modern illness something modern medicine is not accustomed too. In other words, these diseases do not fit neatly into the one disease, one medication model, and thus, very rarely respond favorably to treatment.

To Lose Weight, Feed the Body What it Needs: Nutrients.

Despite the complexity of the interactions that come together and create the chronic health issues we face today, there is one variable that can be controlled that will mitigate obesity and ill-health directly: eating, or more specifically, what is eaten. The simple act of cleaning up one’s diet, of moving away from processed foods and away from conventionally grown foods towards organics, can have a tremendous effect on reducing the body’s toxic load and subsequent inflammation, weight gain, and disease. Similarly, replacing needed micronutrients so that bacterial and mitochondrial functioning can come back online and switch from fat storage to fat/energy burning will be critical. This will take time, however, and the transition towards health may be slow. Obesity and ill-health did not emerge overnight and they will not disappear overnight. Finally, we have to recognize that there is no one-size-fits-all, silver bullet, diet vitamin or diet pill. Each of us adapts to chemical exposures and the lack of nutrition individually and uniquely. So each of us requires a different cocktail of nutrients to move forward. Which nutrients and at what doses should be determined individually and may involve some degree of trial and error. As the Western diet is devoid of critical vitamins, minerals and amino acids, it is likely many individuals are suffering from broad based deficiencies. It is also likely, that restoring what has been absent chronically will go a long way towards health and healing, regardless of one’s particular health issues. So if you are struggling with obesity and other health issues, feed your body what it needs to function – nutrients.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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This post was published originally on Hormones Matter on July 28, 2014.

Chemistry Versus Philosophy: Where Rubber Meets Road in Diet Debates

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on July 31, 2019

9492 views

At least once a week, I have a conversation involving all the reasons why someone cannot/does not/will not consider changes to their diet a necessary step to health. Sometimes the conversation is more about the difficulties of overcoming lifelong bad habits. For those folks, change is difficult but not impossible. Sometimes the conversation involves appreciating that diet and nutrients actually matter. For these folks, change is possible but considerably more difficult. It often does not occur until their health hits rock bottom and they have nothing else to lose by addressing diet. This, of course, makes healing that much more arduous.

Inevitably, however, there are folks for whom eating a particular way is a deeply entrenched philosophical decision. There, I am of no help. Nothing I say and no research I provide will convince them that their body chemistry does not care about their food philosophy. Maintaining that philosophical fortitude is all that matters, health be damned and it often is, sometimes quite severely. These are the conversations that simultaneously infuriate me and break my heart. To watch someone’s health degenerate, knowing all-the-while it does not have to, is perhaps one of the more painful aspects of my work.

It seems that food is no longer valued for its nourishment potential. Instead, it has become a religion of sorts, one that is wrapped tightly in emotion. It is our reason for pleasure and pain, stress, and in many cases, though we don’t like to admit it, no small amount of self-loathing. It seems no matter what we eat, we feel guilt and then, as if to bury that guilt, we give ourselves a reason to eat more of the very foods we know we should not eat. It is a vicious cycle. With all of these emotional tags to food, it is difficult to acknowledge that food, or good food rather, is a necessary component of health. What is even more difficult to acknowledge is that unhealthy foods or even just the wrong foods, can induce disease.

Food, Mitochondria and Energy

A fundamental, though unrecognized, component of health is mitochondrial functioning. As the producers of cellular energy and regulators of a host of other important functions, mitochondria determine how well our bodies respond to stressors. And let’s face it, everything in life is a stressor requiring some amount of energy to resolve. Living itself requires energy. Living in a toxic, ramped up world is a big stressor, requiring more energy. Illness is a stressor, chronic illness even more so. The medications used to treat most illnesses are stressors, damaging the mitochondria by a myriad of mechanisms including depleting vital nutrients. Those nutrients have to come from food, real food, not the processed, sugary, food-like substances we crave. Sometimes, the extra energy needed to fight illness requires supplements, at pharmacological doses, but, and this is important, supplements will never compensate for a bad diet. Ever.

A Healthier Way to Think about Food

What we ingest and how well we metabolize those foods determines to what degree and whether the mitochondria function. In that regard, food is the very foundation of health or disease. It can heal us or harm us based upon its chemistry and ours. For all the complexity of nutrition, it is really quite simple: does the chemistry of the food you eat match the needs of your chemistry? If it does not match, no matter what else you do to improve your health, there will always be something lacking. This is a critical point that is frequently ignored in modern medicine.

Folks often ask me what they should eat and while I cannot recommend a particular diet, here are three questions to evaluate the ‘healthiness’ your diet. Is the inherent chemistry of the food you eat well-suited to your body’s chemistry? Does what you eat provide your body with the necessary macro- and micronutrients it needs to function efficiently? Does what you eat reduce or induce stress in your the body?

How do you know the answers to these questions? Simple. Ask yourself, are you healthy? Are you doing all that you want to do without pain and without medications? Do you have what you consider an appropriate amount of energy? If the answer is yes to each of these questions, then congratulations, you are among the healthy and maybe there is no need to look at diet. For most folks, however, the answer is no to one or all of these questions. In fact, for most of the folks I interact with, energy levels are suboptimal, pain and other issues are present, and medications are used chronically to subsist. This is where diet matters most, and sadly, this is also where dietary changes are often the most difficult.

If one is chronically ill, using multiple medications, chances are the chemistry of the food consumed does not match the nutritional demands. Sometimes the diet is too toxic – e.g. conventionally grown, raised or processed foods. Other times, the diet simply does not provide sufficient macronutrients (protein and fat) and/or micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) to meet the body’s energetic demands. This effectively starves the mitochondria, evoking the reactions involved in chronic disease: inflammation, immune and metabolic dysfunction. Reactions, that no amount of medication can resolve.

Still Don’t Believe Diet Impacts Health?

Perhaps one of the clearest examples of the effects of diet on health can be seen below. Dr. Wahls was essentially chair/bedridden, crippled by multiple sclerosis until she addressed her diet. Sadly, none of her physicians suggested addressing diet. She, like so many others, had to come to this recognition on her own and figure out what her body needed to heal.

If you have not seen this, take 20 minutes to watch it.

And while the Wahls’ diet may not work for everyone, the point it makes is clear. Diet and nutrients matter. Chemistry matters. One’s philosophical or emotional ties to food do not.

If you are suffering from a complex or chronic condition, consider how what you are eating affects your health. Put aside your philosophical views on food and just look at the chemistry.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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This article was published originally on March 7, 2018.

Alternative Medicine 101 and the Fuel to Energy Equation

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on May 21, 2018

3997 views

Whether we like to recognize it or not, the human body is a “hybrid”, meaning that it burns fuel and uses electricity for function. I have found that trying to explain Alternative Medicine is a very difficult task and so I am going to try to do it by using an advanced analogy. I am going to compare the human body with an automobile since both are machines that consume energy.

Of Engines and Fuel

At the average gasoline station, there are three different fuels to choose from. Each is calibrated to engine design. The owner of the automobile knows what fuel should be purchased because he has read the owner’s manual and was instructed when the car was purchased. Knowing which fuel is optimal and choosing that fuel are two different things. We know very well that putting the wrong gasoline into the car is not good for the engine, but oftentimes because of cost, we ignore this advice. We choose a lessor grade fuel. Hence we have millions of cars, some of which may break down because of this failure of choice.

Human beings have evolved from a more primitive species about which we know surprisingly little. However, we are all perfectly aware that the fuel was available throughout our developmental history. From our teeth design we are known as omnivores (an animal that can eat both meat, vegetables and fruit). Very early in our career we were “hunter gatherers”, meaning that we hunted animals for meat and gathered the nuts seeds and vegetation that were available as food. This is still the fuel that was designed for our machinery. Until very recently in our history, there was no food industry to supply us with the variety of processed foods that we have today.

Fuel Storage, Processing, and Transmission: Mechanics 101

Gasoline is stored in a tank: it does not run directly into the engine and it is not consumed until the engine is running.

Similarly, natural food yields a proper combination of protein, fat and carbohydrate, all of which are processed in the body. The primary fuel is glucose, extracted by chemical processes in the body from the food source. This is conveyed by the blood to the liver where it is turned into a more complex, multi-glucose molecule called glycogen for storage, equivalent to a gas tank.

Gasoline is directed from the tank into cylinders that contain pistons. The gasoline is ignited and the explosion drives the pistons connected to the transmission, thus passing the energy to the wheels. The only function required by the car is to move. Note that the engine is producing energy: the transmission is consuming it.

For the body, the process is more complicated but the principles are the same. All cellular action requires the glycogen to be broken down and released from the liver as glucose that now becomes the fuel source, conveyed by the blood throughout the body. This is an important step because storage of glucose in this manner enables it to be released in proportion to the need for action. It might be compared to fuel injection in an automobile.

The body consists of 70 to 100 trillion independent cells, all of which require energy to function. Each cell contains microscopic organelles known as mitochondria where energy is generated. This is done by “burning” glucose that is “ignited” by the action of vitamin B (Glucose + oxygen + vitamin B yields energy). The energy derived from ignition (oxidation) of glucose is stored in the form of a chemical compound known as ATP (adenosine triphosphate). Although an imperfect analogy, ATP can be thought of as somewhat like a battery. Every action, every function of the human body is dependent on this production of energy. ATP is often referred to as the currency of energy transmission

The automobile’s transmission is responsible for passing the energy derived from the engine to the wheels.

In comparison, it is the function of mitochondria to create energy. The next question is how that energy is used. Here there is a striking difference because the body uses that energy in renewing itself as well as dictating function. It uses energy consuming enzymes, chains of which are capable of converting a given substance A to another substance B to C etc. Chains of enzymes carry out the structural details of building new cells as the old ones die off. This is the equivalent of a transmission and energy is consumed.

Energy In Must Match Energy Out

From theses analogies, we can see that all the functions of the human body are detailed in terms of energy production and energy consumption. The production must always keep up with consumption. If the production is inadequate or the consumption is excessive, changes in cellular function follow. If that functional change is not spotted and treated by filling the deficit, cellular damage follows. This must be the basis of true preventive medicine

What about the driver of the car?

Well, until the driverless car becomes a reality, a human being must direct the passage of the car. If we extend the analogy, the driver is the brain that guides the car to its destination.

What about the driver of the body?

It might be said that the brain is the driver of the body. The body is merely a chassis that enables the brain to move around. It is the personality of every human and nothing happens in the body without the brain. Indeed, the brain can be compared to the conductor of an orchestra. The organs in the body are like banks of instruments, and like instrumentalists, they all know exactly what they have to do but require guidance from the conductor. In order to understand this analogy, the lower part of the brain organizes and computes the functions of all body organs through a nervous system known as autonomic (automatic) and a bunch of glands known as the endocrine system. The autonomic system is a two-way street, used for messages into the brain and out to the organs. The endocrine system produces hormones which act as messengers of the brain. When all of this works appropriately, the “symphony of health” follows. The brain uses a disproportionate amount of energy as compared with the rest of the body. It is therefore not surprising that brain disease is a reflection of a defective energy equation.

The present approach in medicine is to kill the offending bacteria and viruses that attack us. Alternative medicine, recognizing that the body possesses sophisticated defenses, seeks to assist those defenses by stimulating energy production by the use of nutrients. In other words, alternative medicine looks at correcting the energy equation as the basis for health.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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Vitamins D3 and K2: Power Partners for Mitochondrial Health

by Susan Rex Ryan

Published on February 20, 2018

10224 views

One of the more common questions regarding vitamin D supplementation is whether or not to supplement with vitamin K also. In this post, I will address those questions as well as look into the roles of these vitamins in mitochondrial function.

If you recall your high school chemistry, mitochondria are the powerhouses of our cells. Their production of cellular energy, or adenosine triphosphate (ATP), depends primarily upon fuel derived from nutrients including vitamins D3 and K2. These two nutrients are co-factors, or partners, synergistically ensuring strong bones and teeth as well as a cardiovascular system void of lingering, plaque-induced calcium.

Why Is Vitamin D3 Important?

Adequate vitamin D3 is essential to our health and quality of life. Every cell in our body contains a vitamin D receptor (VDR). When a VDR is activated by a sufficient intake of vitamin D3, a number of good things happen. Vitamin D3’s mechanisms of action include: anti-microbial, anti-cancer, and anti-inflammatory. Moreover, scientific research suggests that vitamin D3 deficiency is connected to a wide array of serious medical conditions such as cancer, diabetes, mental health disorders as well as multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases.

Due to our modern lifestyles and conventional medical practices, we tend to get little vitamin D3 from its natural source, the ultraviolet B, or UVB, light of the sun. From living, commuting, and working indoors to fretfully slapping sunscreen all over our skin, we appear intent on denying ourselves this essential nutrient.

The re-emergence in the twenty-first century of rickets, a Victorian-era disease causing soft bones primarily in children, calls to action the need for adequate vitamin D3 supplementation. As most diets are severely lacking in vitamin D3, the most practical way of getting adequate amounts of this nutrient is by taking an inexpensive daily, oral D3 supplement. My Facebook support group called “Vitamin D Wellness” provides information about an easy-to-follow protocol designed to increase D3 levels to an optimal value of 100 ng/mL (250 nmol/L).

The Importance of Vitamin K

Before discussing vitamin K2, I would be remiss if I did not mention the first form of vitamin K. Vitamin K1 is literally a vital nutrient. Without vitamin K1 our blood would not clot, and we could bleed to death. The good news is that vitamin K1 (or phylloquinone) is present in all green plants that acquire energy from sunlight. Green leafy vegetables including spinach, kale, collards, broccoli, and brussel sprouts abound with vitamin K1. Better news: vitamin K1 constantly recycles in our bodies so deficiency is rare.

Vitamin K2 (or menaquinone) however differs greatly from K1. There are two forms of vitamin K2: menaquinone-4 (MK-4) found in grass-fed animal protein including meat, egg yolk, butter, some cheeses, and calf’s liver.

A fermented soybean called natto, commonly consumed in Japan, is abundant in the more potent form of vitamin K2 called menaquinone-7 (MK-7). For those who do not want to consume soy, vitamins K2 MK-7 supplements made from chickpeas and formulated with coconut oil are readily available. My Facebook group protocol “Vitamin D Wellness” includes guidance on K2 MK-7 supplementation.

Health benefits of adequate vitamin K2 levels include potential prevention of osteoporosis, arterial plaque, and dental issues. Vitamin K2 moves calcium to the bones and teeth, as well as sweeps calcium from soft tissue lining such as arteries. Specifically, vitamin K2 activates proteins (osteocalcin and matrix gla protein) produced by vitamin D3 that facilitate moving calcium to where it belongs: the bones and teeth.

Low vitamin K2 levels are common. First, unlike vitamin K1, vitamin K2 is not recycled in the body. Second, the vitamin’s natural sources are lacking in most diets. Owing to the preponderance of industrial farming in many parts of the world, many people are low in vitamin K2. When insufficient vitamin K2 is in the blood stream, calcium can linger along arterial pathways potentially causing calcification, the process whereby calcium deposits form plaque accumulating in the cardiovascular system. These calcium deposits can cause heart disease.

The Vitality of Vitamins D3 and K2

Specific research on vitamin D3 and vitamin K2’s association with mitochondrial function remains limited yet fruitful:

Published in a 2013 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, a Newcastle-upon-Tyne University, UK study led by Dr. Akash Sinha demonstrated, for the first time, a connection between vitamin D3 intake and mitochondria function in human skeletal muscles. Sinha and his team concluded that muscle function, including muscle fatigue, improved with vitamin D3 supplementation.

The positive effect of vitamin K2 on apoptosis, or natural cell death, in various types of cancer cells has been established. For example, researchers in China discovered the apoptotic influence of vitamin K2 on bladder cancer cells through mitochondrial pathway. Their findings are reported in an August 2016 edition of the journal PLoS One.

In summary, the powerful partnership of vitamins D3 and K2 is essential to mitochondrial health. By enjoying optimal daily intake of D3 and K2, you are more likely to have strong bones, teeth, and muscles as well as a calcium-free cardiovascular system. Oh, and your risk of developing cancer is diminished!

Do You Need to Supplement Vitamin D3 and K2?

Given the paucity of vitamins D3 and K2 in our diets, I think daily supplementation provides the most effective way to increase and maintain these nutrient levels. I find taking a daily dose of 10,000 iu of vitamin D3 and 90-120 mcg of vitamin K2 MK-7 soft gel capsules with or after breakfast works best for me. What an easy way to enjoy the benefits of this powerful partnership of mitochondrial nutrients!

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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Semmelweiss Syndrome: Ignoring the Obvious to Save Face

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on February 5, 2018

5032 views

Who was Semmelweiss? Please read the post below to find out. We have an urgent message for both patient and physician. It isn’t really new because it started with Hippocrates in 400 BC “when he said ”let food be your medicine and medicine be your food”. He also said that no kind of treatment should ever be used that may do harm. All you have to do is to read the Physicians’ Desk Reference and read about almost any drug. It begins with a short sentence about what it must be used for. Then it very often states that nobody knows why the drug works. What follows is a lengthy discussion of side effects, pure evidence of its toxicity. The potential for harm is implicit. Hippocrates realized that healing was a natural process within the body itself and that any treatment method should assist this process. Today, we are well aware that this healing process requires a huge amount of energy that must be conserved and focused by resting body and mind. Modern biochemistry provides us with facts that show the wisdom of Hippocrates when he said “let food be your medicine”!

An Obvious Fallacy in Modern Medicine

Healing is a natural process from within the body that operates best when it is focused. The modern hospital, with its constant clatter and its complete failure to give the patient the rest and tranquility required for energy conservation, works against the healing process. The question that we must ask, is how we should proceed in order to assist healing. The answer must be obvious: help to supply the means by which energy is produced and conserved in the body. Health is a balance between the attack of environment (the enemy) and the constant mobilization of adaptive function that requires energy to maintain functional efficiency (the defense)

Alternative Medicine

This is the philosophy that has given rise to the development of a small group of physicians that use nutrient-based medicine. The point is this: modern medicine attempts always to kill the enemy. Kill the bacteria, the virus, the cancer cell, without killing the patient. Alternative medicine respects this only if it does no harm to the patient. The main approach of these physicians is to anticipate the body’s requirements in all its different ways in attempting to heal itself, the philosophy that was put forward by Hippocrates. These physicians often find that they are excluded from the conventional medical hierarchy, spurned by their former colleagues and despised. When they have a brilliant success with a patient, it is invariably labeled as “spontaneous remission” and we have wondered why this seems to be so inevitable in human affairs.

The Story of Semmelweis

The apocryphal story is that of Ignaz Semmelweiss who was a European physician who practiced before microorganisms had been discovered. He observed that doctors came in from the morgue and delivered their patients without washing their hands or changing clothes. The puerperal fever (childbed fever) rate was excessively high, of course. Semmelweiss concluded that the doctors must be bringing something in on their hands. He divided the ward into two sections and directed that doctors attending patients on one side should wash their hands in chlorinated lime before they performed a delivery, whereas the doctors on the other side should continue in the same old way. It did not need a statistician to see the difference in the incidence of infection. But what happened to Semmelweiss was just as predictable. He had done something new that disagreed with the medical establishment of the day. He was accused of being unscientific by suggesting that an unknown substance on the hands of the doctors was the cause of the problem. He was fired from the hospital and eventually died in a mental institution. He was right and they were wrong. The truly amazing thing is that the medical establishment never bothered to look at the results and times have not changed.

Nutrients Matter: It’s That Simple

People who have to admit their loved ones to hospital as an emergency, knowing and understanding the dramatic effect of nutrient-based treatment, are almost always completely powerless to get the attending physician even to listen to them. A physician of my acquaintance had a patient in hospital with pneumonia due to a resistant bacterial organism. He gave the patient nutritional IVs with water soluble vitamins. The patient recovered. In the next bed was a patient with exactly the same pneumonia who was under the care of another physician. My acquaintance approached what should have been his colleague and suggested that he do the same treatment, using the vitamin therapy. He was told flatly to mind his own business. The patient died. You would think that the second physician would want to discuss the reasoning and the scientific evidence to support the action. Was the belief in his own competence (ego) more important than the life of his patient? This is happening today in the world of medicine. We have come to accept it as the great “Bonanza” of scientific advance. Readers should be aware that the leadership for change will not come from the medical profession. It will come from those most interested in solving those personal health problems that have defied solution, sometimes for years. This website can spread the good news that there are often alternatives to be sought.

We Need Your Help

More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Image: An injection against croup at the Hôpital Trousseau, Paris. Photogravure by Bruun Clement, 1899, after P.A.A. Brouillet, 1893. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

A New Model for Medicine

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on October 23, 2017

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What is a Medical Model?

In the Oxford English dictionary the word model is defined as “design to be followed, style of structure”. Then it follows that there must be a model to distinguish health from disease, that differentiates the two states of being. No disease can be treated without knowing exactly what caused it. Let us go back to Hippocrates, 400 BCE, who said “let food be your medicine and your medicine be your food”. What Hippocrates was saying was essentially that nutrition was the core issue in the maintenance of health. At this time and throughout the Middle Ages there was no model for the cause of disease. Consequently, treatment was extremely primitive and almost purely empirical. In the time of ancient Egypt it was believed that mental illness was caused by the presence of evil spirits in a person’s head. They bored holes in the skull to let the evil spirits out. If you think about that, perhaps it relieved the occasional headache because of increased pressure in the skull caused by a brain tumor. Hence, a few successes might have caused it to be retained as beneficial. During the Middle Ages, the only treatment that seems to have been used is bloodletting. It might have been temporarily useful in people with high blood pressure. A few successes yielded the conclusion that it was beneficial for all disease.

The First Controlled Experiment

Semmelweis was a 19 ^th century Hungarian physician. In those days, the incidence of puerperal disease (childbed fever) was absurdly high. Semmelweis made the observation that doctors, delivering their patients, entered the delivery room and went directly to their patients without changing their garments or washing. He came to the simple conclusion that the doctors were bringing something in with their hands that caused the problem. The obstetric ward consisted of a number of beds on each side of the room and Semmelweis directed that doctors delivering their patients on one side should wash their hands in chlorinated lime, while doctors on the other side of the room would continue in the old way. Of course, the incidence of childbed fever was so different that it did not need a statistician to document the difference. Semmelweis’s observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time, particularly as he was unable to explain what was on the hands of the doctors. Some doctors were even offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands. It is truly an amazing vision of human behavior. Innovation carries with it loss of reputation for the innovator, no matter how successful the innovation. Well, of course everyone today knows that it was microorganisms on the hands of the doctors that caused the disease, but they had not yet been discovered. Poor Semmelweis wound up in a lunatic asylum and died in his 40s after a beating by attendants. Today, he is regarded as the first person to introduce antiseptic medicine.

The First Paradigm in Medicine: Microscopic Organisms

Most people are aware that the invention of the microscope, and the work of historical figures like Louis Pasteur, led to the discovery of organisms, that could only be seen with the microscope, caused what we now call infection. We are all familiar with the fact that a tremendous number of diseases are due to infection by bacteria, viruses or fungi. It was a perfectly logical conclusion that the development of treatment should be aimed at killing these organisms. This was the first paradigm in medicine, meaning that it was accepted by all. A glance at history will tell us that the search for medication that would kill these organisms was hard won. It was difficult to find something that would kill the germs without killing the patient and many patients lost their lives as a result of this search. The discovery of penicillin represented a dramatic change in perspective as it gave birth to the antibiotic age. Millions of lives have been saved. However, we are now entering an era where the development of antibiotic resistance is becoming an increasing problem. More and more potentially damaging antibiotics have been synthesized that present their own problems in therapy.

The Second Paradigm in Medicine: Immunity

It has been said that Louis Pasteur made the statement on his deathbed, “I was wrong: it is the defenses of the body that matter”. I believe that this may well become the second paradigm in medicine. So what are we talking about? Everyone recognizes that we have immunity but the average person has only the vaguest idea of what this really means. In fact, body defenses against infection are exquisitely complex and incredibly efficient when the immune system is healthy. The primary mechanism for health maintenance is exactly what Hippocrates said, not only the quantity but the quality of nutrition. By recognizing this, the concept is offered that preventive medicine, the use of nutrients based on a knowledge of the biochemical machinery that give our cells function, is the second paradigm.

Presently, we stimulate our immunity by the use of vaccines. However, each vaccine gives a protection to a specific microorganism, perhaps the best example being the flu. Most of us are aware that there are many strains of the flu virus and it may not be possible to predict the particular strain responsible for the “next epidemic”. Natural immune defense mechanisms recognize most invaders as “enemies”. Those whose adaptive/immune mechanisms cannot respond will succumb to the infection. Assisting the immunity mechanisms by making energy synthesis as efficient as possible and killing the “enemy” with maximum safety to the patient might just be the way of the future.

How the Body Responds to Environmental Stressors

Each one of us comes with a “blueprint” derived from our parents in the form of genes that carry a code called DNA. This code is unique for each person and provides the structure that makes up a living person. The body is composed of 70 to 100 trillion cells, all of which have to cooperate to produce what we call function. I think of it being like an orchestra where all the organs are made up of cells, each one of which has a specific specialty to provide its contribution. Like instrumentalists in an orchestra, the cells within each body organ have to work together. This requires a conductor, a function that is performed by the subconscious brain. Coordination is administered through an automatic (autonomic) nervous system and a bunch of glands known as the endocrine system that produce messengers called hormones.

Consider what happens when a person is attacked by a pathogenic Streptococcus, for example. The throat becomes sore, the marker of inflammation. Controlled and executed through the brain, it increases local blood supply, bringing white blood cells into the area and is part of a defensive process. Glands in the neck become enlarged and this is also a defensive process, designed to catch and destroy the germs beginning to spread. Body temperature becomes elevated because disease producing bacteria are most virulent at normal body temperature and their efficiency is reduced at a higher body temperature. A standard procedure in medicine for many years has been to reduce the fever and it has always seemed to me to be a disadvantage, based on this explanation. We sweat when the environmental temperature is high and evaporation from the skin results in cooling. When the environmental temperature is low, we shiver and the muscular activity produces heat to maintain body temperature. These are examples of how we are able to adapt to changes in our environment that threaten our well-being. All of this is purely automatic and the only thing to complete the picture is how our food (fuel) is used to create energy. Maximum efficiency of brain metabolism is mandatory. Assist and protect the “conductor”.

How We Create Energy: Enter the Mitochondria

Because any form of burning is the union of oxygen with the fuel, in the body it is termed oxidation. The process is complex and many vitamins and minerals are involved, besides calories. It has long been known that thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency is the cause of beriberi, the disease that had plagued humanity for thousands of years. Because this deficiency affects every cell in the body, it can degrade the efficiency of virtually any organ. But because different tissues have their own rate of metabolism and the brain and heart are the two tissues that require fast and efficient oxidation, it is the cells in those tissues that are most affected. Therefore, thiamine deficiency has its major effect in the brain and heart, but they are not exclusive.

Glucose is the main fuel, but like any other fuel used to produce energy, it has to be ignited. Thiamine, much like a spark plug in a car, processes this ignition. All simple sugars taken in the diet are broken down to glucose. But before this happens in the body, dietary sugars have two effects. The first is a signal from the tongue to the pleasure zones of the brain. It is this sweet taste that makes sugar addictive. The second is that this excess of sugar overwhelms the capacity of thiamine to oxidize glucose to create energy. A person may have a perfectly normal thiamine level in the blood that is inadequate to meet the demand. It is the ratio of “empty carbohydrate calories” to the concentration of available thiamine that counts. I have called this “high calorie malnutrition” that seems to be an oxymoron since malnutrition is generally considered to be on the way to starvation. The patients with this form of malnutrition may be obese, remain relatively active, do not look ill and multiple symptoms are regarded by their physicians as “psychologic, or psychosomatic”. There appears to be no reason to seek laboratory evidence of malnutrition and the patient is written off as a “problem patient”. It is hardly surprising that the patient leaves the doctor’s office angry and tells friends that “the doctor told me that it was all in my head”.

The irony is that it IS in the patient’s head, but because of electro-chemical changes in brain metabolism. It has always seemed odd to me that physicians often consider that “psychological issues” are somehow “invented” by patients without thinking that every thought, every action, has a mechanism produced in a chemical “machine” called a brain. Distortions are the result of a combination of cellular energy deficiency (malnutrition), coupled with a potential genetic risk and perhaps a stress factor such as an otherwise mild infection/injury, or an inoculation. Any one of the three factors may dominate the clinical presentation, but in most cases the other two are involved.

A New Model: Genetics, Nutrition, and Stress

Throughout life each of us depends on our ability to survive in an essentially hostile environment. The first thing that it depends upon is our genetic inheritance that I have called “the blueprint”. But we also know that the “engines” of our cells, known as mitochondria, have their own genes in which the DNA is more susceptible to damage than our cellular genes. A new model must consider the fact that any stress requires energy in an adaptive response to any form of environmental attack resulting from a mental or physical problem or infection. The only way that we can protect the structural components of our bodies is by the use of the natural ingredients of nutrition, the ancient teaching of Hippocrates. The new science of epigenetics finds evidence that nutrition and lifestyle can make changes to our genes that might be beneficial or not, according to the circumstances. If a person has become sick from an excess of empty calories and refuses to change, the only way to treat that person would be by increasing the concentration of the missing nutritional ingredient in the form of a supplement. It is of paramount interest that in 1962 a paper was written in a prestigious medical journal. The author had found 696 medical journal manuscripts that reported 250 different diseases that had been treated with supplementary thiamine, with varying degrees of success. This suggests the possibility that health is produced by a combination of genetic influence, how we meet the daily impacts of stress and the quality of our nutrition. Disease results from, either genetic failure (cellular or mitochondrial), failure to meet stress because of energy deficiency, malnutrition, or combinations of the three elements.

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Thoughts on Inflammation, Vaccines and Modern Medicine

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on September 28, 2017

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One of the core components of an HPV vaccine adverse reaction inevitably includes some degree of seemingly unexplainable but observable brain inflammation and white matter disintegration. The brain inflammation falls under a number of different names and diagnoses, some are regionally specific, cerebellar anomalies for example, while others demarcate a more diffuse injury including, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), sometimes known as chronic fatigue, multiple sclerotic (MS) type lesions and, the newest and perhaps more prescient among them, a set of conditions designated as Autoimmune/Inflammatory Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants or ASIA that denote chronic inflammation both centrally and peripherally relative to vaccine adjuvant exposure.

Is the Brain Immune Privileged?

Despite the observance of brain inflammation in many post HPV vaccine victims, many practitioners, and indeed, the FDA and CDC, seem loathe to recognize that an aluminum lipopolysaccharide adjuvanted virus vector might induce a neuro-inflammatory response, leaving patients with little recourse post injury. The difficulties attributing brain inflammation to a vaccine reaction stem from a long held belief that the blood brain barrier is stalwart in its protection against peripheral trespassers. The brain has long been considered, ‘immune privileged’ having little to no communication with peripheral immune function. Indeed, the perceived impenetrableness of the blood brain barrier is so extensive that brain-body separation might as well be complete, with a brain in bottle and a decapitated body.

Logically, we know this cannot be true. There must be crosstalk between the immune systems of brain/central nervous system and that of the body. How else could we survive if the two modalities were segregated so completely? It turns out, that logic may be prevailing. A decade of research suggests that the long held notion brain immune – privilege is completely and utterly incorrect. Indeed, the immune system not only guides early neurodevelopment (and so mom’s immune function matters) but communicates and affects brain morphological changes chronically. Likewise, signals from the brain continuously influence peripheral immune function.

The immune system appears to influence the nervous system during typical functioning and in disease. Chronic infection or severe illness may disrupt the balance of normal neural–immune cross-talk resulting in permanent structural changes in the brain during development, and/or contributing to pathology later in life. The diversity, promiscuity, and redundancy of “immune” signaling molecules allow for a complex coordination of activities and precise signaling pathways, fundamental to both the immune and nervous systems.

It should not be surprising then, that nutrient status and toxicant exposures in the periphery, in the body, affect central nervous system function and are capable of inducing brain inflammation and vice versa. And yet, it is; perhaps even more so than any of us realize.

Re -Thinking Brain Inflammation

When one reads through the definitions, research and case reports of ADEM, ME, MS or other instances of brain inflammation, the notion that biochemical lesions in the periphery are linked to observed neuro-inflammatory reactions is far from center stage. Nevertheless, if we can accept the premise what happens in and to the body does not stay in the body, then we can begin to re-frame our approach to brain inflammation. Specifically, we can look at inflammation more globally and ask not only what triggers inflammation, but allows inflammation to persist chronically, regardless of its location. If there is an on-going peripheral inflammatory response, is it not prudent to suspect that a similar response might be occurring within the central nervous system, even if our imaging tools are not yet capable of visualizing the inflammation; even if it is too premature to observe demyelination, neuronal, axonal swelling or other telltale signs of chronic brain inflammation? I think it is.

Vaccine Adjuvants: A Pathway to Brain Inflammation

With the HPV vaccine, and indeed, any vaccine, the deactivated viral vectors come with a cocktail of additional chemical toxicants and a metal adjuvant to boost the recipient’s immune response, as measured by the increase in post vaccine inflammatory markers. It is believed that without these adjuvants (and data back this up), the recipient’s immune response is insufficiently activated to merit ‘protection’ against the virus. The strength or size of the immune response is then equated with success and protection.

By this equation, an excessive immune response that continues chronically and is eventually labeled ‘autoimmune’ as innate systems begin to fail, is in some way not a failure or side effect, but an example of extreme success; the larger the immune response, the stronger the vaccine. And so, skewed as this observation may seem, within the current vaccine-paradigm there can be no ‘side-effects’, not really. By design, there should be inflammation, even brain inflammation; the more the better. Also by design, metal, lipid soluble, adjuvants cross the blood brain barrier and directly induce brain inflammation. To say vaccines don’t or somehow couldn’t induce brain inflammation is ignorant, if not, utterly negligent, and quite simply, defies logic. Again, for prudence and safety, shouldn’t we assume that an inflammatory reaction in the body might also ignite some concordant reaction in the central nervous system?

Why Aren’t We All Vaccine Injured?

What becomes apparent though, is even with exposure to the most toxic brew of vaccines, not all who receive vaccines are injured, at least observably. (I would argue, however, even those who appear healthy post vaccine, had we the tools to observe brain inflammation more accurately, would show a central inflammatory response, at least acutely, and likely, progressively). So what distinguishes those individuals who seem fine post vaccine, particularly post HPV vaccine, from those who are injured severely and sometimes mortally?

More and more, I think that the fundamental differences between vaccine reactors and non-reactors rest in microbial and mitochondrial health. Indeed, all vaccines, medications, and environmental toxicants damage mitochondria, often via multiple mechanisms, while altering microbial balance. Whether an individual can withstand those mitochondrial insults depends largely upon a balance struck among three variables: 1) heritable mitochondrial dysfunction, genetic and epigenetic; 2) the frequency and severity of toxicant exposures across the lifetime; and 3) nutrient status. Those variables then, through the mitochondria, influence the degree and chronicity of inflammation post vaccine. With the HPV vaccine in particular, the timing of the vaccine, just as puberty approaches and hormone systems come online, may confer additional and unrecognized risks to future reproductive health.

Mitochondria and Microbiota

The mitochondria, as we’ve written about on numerous occasions, control not only cellular energy, but cell life and death. Every cell in the body, including neurons in the brain, require healthy mitochondria to function appropriately. Healthy mitochondria are inextricably tied to nutrient concentrations, which demand not only dietary considerations but balanced gut microbiota. Gut bacteria synthesize essential nutrients from scratch and absorb and metabolize dietary nutrients that feed the mitochondria. Indeed, from an evolutionary perspective, mitochondria evolved from microbiota and formed the symbiotic relationship that regulate organismal health. Disturb gut bacteria and not only do we get an increase in pathogenic infections and chronic inflammation, but also, a consequent decrease in nutrient availability. This too can, by itself, damage mitochondria.

When the mitochondria are damaged, either by lack nutrients and/or toxicant exposure, they trigger cascades of biochemical reactions aimed at conserving energy and saving the cell for as long as reasonably possible. When survival is no longer possible, mitochondrial sequestration, and eventually, death ensue, often via necrosis rather than the more tightly regulated apoptosis. Where the mitochondria die, cells die, tissue dies and organ function becomes impaired. I should note, as steroid hormone production is a key function of mitochondria, hormone dysregulation, ovarian damage and reduced reproductive capacity may be specific marker of mitochondrial damage in young women.

Mitochondria and Inflammation

Mitochondria regulate immune system activation and inflammation and so inflammation is a sign of mitochondrial damage, even brain inflammation. Per a leading researcher in mitochondrial signaling:

The cell danger response (CDR) is the evolutionarily conserved metabolic response that protects cells and hosts from harm. It is triggered by encounters with chemical, physical, or biological threats that exceed the cellular capacity for homeostasis. The resulting metabolic mismatch between available resources and functional capacity produces a cascade of changes in cellular electron flow, oxygen consumption, redox, membrane fluidity, lipid dynamics, bioenergetics, carbon and sulfur resource allocation, protein folding and aggregation, vitamin availability, metal homeostasis, indole, pterin, 1-carbon and polyamine metabolism, and polymer formation.
The first wave of danger signals consists of the release of metabolic intermediates like ATP and ADP, Krebs cycle intermediates, oxygen, and reactive oxygen species (ROS), and is sustained by purinergic signaling.
After the danger has been eliminated or neutralized, a choreographed sequence of anti-inflammatory and regenerative pathways is activated to reverse the CDR and to heal.
When the CDR persists abnormally, whole body metabolism and the gut microbiome are disturbed, the collective performance of multiple organ systems is impaired, behavior is changed, and chronic disease results.

Reducing Inflammation

Instinctively, we think reducing inflammation pharmacologically, by blocking one of the many inflammatory pathways, is the preferred route of treatment. However, this may only add to the mitochondrial damage, further alter the balance of gut microbiota and ensure increased immune activation, while doing nothing to restore mitochondrial and microbial health. In emergent and acute cases, this may be warranted, where an immediate, albeit temporary, reduction in inflammation is required. The risk, however, is that short term gains in reduced inflammation are overridden by additional mitochondrial damage and increased risk of chronic and/or progressive inflammation. The whole process risks becoming a medical game of whack-a-mole; a boon to pharmaceutical sales, but devastating to those who live with the pain of a long-standing inflammatory condition.

In light of the the fact that damaged mitochondria activate inflammatory pathways and that vaccines, medications and environmental toxicants induce mitochondrial damage, perhaps we ought to begin looking at restoring gut microbial health and overall mitochondrial functioning. And as an aside, perhaps we ought to look at persistent inflammation not as an autoinflammatory reaction, but for what is it, an indication of on-going mitochondrial dysfunction.

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This post was published originally on Hormones Matter on September 22, 2014.

More About Eosinophilic Esophagitis

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on February 16, 2016

12579 views

Seeing some of the comments following the appearance of my post Eosinophilic Esophagitis May Be a Sugar Sensitive Disease, it seemed that it was necessary to provide a little more explanation for how the conclusions were reached. Hopefully this may produce less misunderstanding.

Compartmentalized Medicine

The present model for disease is being rapidly outdated, so let me first of all review how a diagnosis is made in modern medicine. When a patient pays a visit to a physician, a medical history is recorded. The history begins by the patient describing symptoms, the sensory afflictions experienced since the loss of health began. This is followed by a physical examination when the physician is looking for evidence of malfunction. For example, this may include finding enlargement of a given organ, point tenderness when pain is elicited or a neurological deficit. Family history and the history of previous illnesses are both taken into account. The physician may or may not have a working idea of the nature of the disease process at this stage and a series of laboratory tests are requested. All of this is put together and the physician then has to consider what is generally referred to as a differential diagnosis. Which part of the physical examination, combined with the tests, all point conclusively to a diagnostic category?

This method of making a diagnosis was derived from the Flexner report initiated by Rockefeller in 1910. It was adopted from the German method in which laboratory confirmation was emphasized. This gave rise to the methodology that we now call “scientific medicine”. The symptoms, signs and laboratory reports are then put together and a given disease is named as the most likely fit.

So let us examine for a moment how this confuses us. All sensations are perceived in the brain and symptoms are merely a method by which the brain/body provides a warning that something is wrong. The “wrongness” has to be interpreted. In the present model, each constellation of symptoms, signs and laboratory reports are then given a name. For example, because somebody by the name of Parkinson was the first to describe a given constellation, it is called Parkinson’s disease, even though the underlying cause is completely unknown. Research has been aimed at finding a cure for that disease without giving full recognition to the fact that the constellation of findings overlaps with the constellations exhibited in other brain diseases, each being named separately. Furthermore, if the constellation points to an organ as the seat of a given problem (such as the intestine), the patient is referred to a specialist (a gastroenterologist) whose practice is confined to diseases of that organ (organic disease). An attempt to improve the symptoms by prescribing drugs is the chosen method, without considering the complex connection of the sick organ with the brain. An “anti-inflammatory” drug is prescribed, without asking why or what caused the organ to become sick.

In the case that I wrote about previously, the disease process called eosinophilic esophagitis or EoE, results from ingesting food. The presently accepted cause is “food allergy”.

Understanding Disease Differently: A Connected System

Let me provide an example to illustrate the change in perspective that occurs if the whole person is considered. On one of these posts a mother reported that her daughter had eosinophilic esophagitis, “associated with idiopathic gastroparesis” (partial or complete paralysis of the intestine). The word idiopathic stands for the simple sentence “the cause is unknown”. Evidently, no attempt had been made to connect the two conditions together. Is it likely that two unusual conditions will exist at the same time in one individual? By recognizing that the brain is always involved with body disease and brain disease is always involved with the body, it is possible to provide a solution for a connection between eosinophilic esophagitis and gastroparesis. It depends completely on an understanding of the profound genius of the brain/body interconnection.

The post that led to all of these comments asks the question, is this disease caused by the ingestion of sugar? We know that ingestion of sugar can easily induce thiamine deficiency because we have the ancient model of beriberi where white rice (without its surrounding cusp) ingestion, consumed as a staple, was found to be the cause. (Rice grain is starch and is broken down in the body to glucose. The cusp around the grain contains the vitamins. When the cusp of the rice is removed, as it is in white rice, the vitamins are removed leaving only the starch, which is converted to glucose.)

Digestion: Where Mechanical Meets Chemical

The vagus nerve is the 10th cranial nerve. Its action, initiated in the lower part of the brain, is to send outgoing messages to the spleen, an important organ that is used for controlling inflammation. The vagus nerve uses a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine and it also deploys messages to the esophagus and the entire intestinal tract. The wave pattern in the respective parts of the intestine that is induced by this nerve is called peristalsis. It pushes the contents along while the complex process of digestion occurs. Without going into details, the synthesis of acetylcholine depends on vitamin B complex, dominated by thiamine. Without thiamine, there is less acetylcholine and without this vital neurotransmitter, the control of inflammation and peristalsis in the esophagus, the intestinal tract, or both, are all compromised.

Eosinophilic Esophagitis and Food Allergy

In EoE, food sensitivity, occurring for whatever reason and known as food allergy, is causing inflammation that might occur in either the esophagus or any other part of the intestinal tract. When it occurs in the intestine it is called eosinophilic enteritis. Although the mechanism is the same, the locality differs but the esophagus is more commonly the affected part. The inflammatory response gets out of control because the vagus nerve, lacking acetylcholine to transmit the necessary information, is failing to suppress esophageal inflammation by sending a proper message to the spleen. The association of eosinophilic penetration into the intestinal tissue is part of the inflammation and it is interesting that a similar event has been associated with asthma in bronchial tubes. Asthma was a recurrent problem in the history of my patient.

Like the famous poem:

“for the want of a nail a shoe was lost; for the want of a shoe a horse was lost; for the want of a horse a battle was lost; for the want of a battle a kingdom was lost”.

To paraphrase this in biochemical terms “for the want of thiamine (vitamin B1), action of the citric acid cycle (engine of the cell) was lost; for the want of the citric acid cycle, acetylcholine (neurotransmitter) was lost; for the want of acetylcholine, suppression of inflammation was lost; for the want of acetylcholine, normal peristalsis (wavelike action) in the esophagus and intestinal tract was lost.

The loss of the peristaltic wave in the intestine was given the name “idiopathic gastroparesis”, a clear indication by the diagnostician that “its cause is unknown”. Like the blind men and the elephant the present medical model looks at a segment of the problem and fails to see the big picture. The trouble with this failure to understand the full nature of the problem is because we have divided brain disease from body disease. If it is suspected that the brain is the cause of the problem and all laboratory studies are negative, it is assumed that the symptoms are psychosomatic in nature and have been “imagined by the patient”. When the patient is told that it is “psychological”, it naturally induces anger.

My patient’s symptoms, recurring through infancy to the age of 8 years, were thought to be psychosomatic until endoscopy revealed the esophagitis. The “psychosomatic symptoms” were resulting from thiamine deficiency affecting the brain. His dramatic growth spurt during treatment strongly suggested that the autonomic (automatic) nervous system was at the seat of the complex problem. That conclusion can be supported by the medical literature concerning a well known genetically determined disease called Familial Dysautonomia, a disease whose clinical course results in growth failure. In the case of my patient, the dysautonomia was reversible and the result of thiamine deficiency, hence the growth spurt.

Nobody is looking for evidence of a vitamin deficiency because it has been assumed that that kind of disease is of only historical interest. This idea is so impregnated in the modern medical psyche that we can actually miss such a diagnosis when it is staring us in the face! That was the case here and may be the case in many other instances of eosinophilic esophagitis or enteritis.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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Very high magnification micrograph of eosinophilic esophagitis.

Nephron, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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