hypoxia

Depression, Anxiety, and the Chronically Hypoxic Brain

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I couldn’t help noticing the Wall Street Journal of Thursday, June 7, in which a column reported a completely unexpected suicide. The title of the column was “Kate Spade’s Family Recounts Her Battle With Depression”. It was reported that “Ms. Spade had suffered from depression and anxiety, and was being treated with medication and therapy. Depression and anxiety disorders occur simultaneously in about 25% of general practice patients. In the abstract, the author says “about 85% of patients with depression have anxiety and 90% of patients with anxiety have depression. Benzodiazepines may help alleviate insomnia and anxiety but not depression”. It must be obvious that the general impression is that these are two different expressions of psychological disarray that require different drugs to treat them. Evidently, Ms. Spade had left a suicide note indicating that she had been under mental stress from her marriage. There were other stresses reported. She had been living separately from her husband for 10 months and had been seeking help for the past five years.

The incongruity requires explanation. Here was a 55-year-old woman who was highly successful in the eyes of the world and her suicide appears to be completely incongruous, as indeed most suicides are. There should be a logical explanation for such an anachronism. The instinct for life is incredibly strong for us and indeed for all creatures in the animal kingdom. I offer my explanation here, based on the contention that the human brain is an electrochemical machine and that its functions are highly dependent on an adequate supply of energy. This does not take into account the concept of a soul that must remain one of the great mysteries of life.

Revisiting Freud: The Ego and the Id

According to Sigmund Freud, the id is the subconscious mind supervised by the ego and what he called the super-ego. All are built upon the presupposed existence of conscious and unconscious thoughts. Modern research has failed to find individual areas in the human brain dealing with the control of specific action. Its function is now regarded as an integrated organ, all parts of which share that action. However, much of this activity is entirely automatic and below conscious level. All brains in higher members of the animal kingdom are built on the same anatomical principle, presumably reflecting a “oneness” in design. If we are to accept evolution as the driving force, the brain of each animal has been developed to service that animal in its natural niche. The niche of Homo sapiens appears to be that of the dominant species and it has evolved from a more primitive state to a more sophisticated one, gradually introducing increased complexity. Brain action would be expected to become more and more sophisticated over time, perhaps making us more cooperative.

We have no idea what is in store for us with continued evolution, but it has long seemed to me that we are still relatively primitive at the philosophical level. Under stressful conditions, the actions of the human brain are much less predictable. However we consider the distribution of brain function, it is an electrochemical machine and a great deal of its activity is unconscious and purely automatic. Body organs signal the brain that then gives instructions to them via the autonomic and endocrine systems. It is therefore convenient to accept the ego and the id, each with its separate functions, however, they are controlled, by the conscious and unconscious mind. Some of the net behavior might be perceived as actions of the automatic component, governed and permitted by the conscious component. It has been suggested that human beings are built as “mean fighting machines equipped for self-interest”.

The Nervous System

Many posts on this website describe the difference between the so-called voluntary and the autonomic nervous systems. The term “voluntary” indicates that we can think and move at will and its actions are dictated by the conscious mind. The autonomic nervous system is almost completely automatic and governs many purely reflex actions, the fight-or-flight reflex being the best known. Hunger and thirst are self-preservatives. The sex drive preserves the continued existence of the species. Yes, these reflexes give us a sense of pleasure, which is the driving incentive and the brain provides us with sensory mechanisms that provide that pleasure. Everything is tied together by a complex code known as DNA, whose individual characteristics describe the physical profile and personality of each animal including humans. From a purely philosophical point of view, it calls into question whether we truly have free will or whether we are programmed by the environment in which we find ourselves. If all components fit together as designed, we can say that the “blueprint” for each person dictates the nature of the personality and reflects his/her mental and physical health. Our training to meet life starts in infancy and is in the hands of parents.

Of Stress and Stressors

Stress is a physical or mental event to which each of us has to adapt. As I have mentioned in other posts on this website, a Canadian researcher by the name of Hans Selye studied the effect of physical stress in animals for many years. He came to the conclusion that virtually any form of stress demanded an increase in the supply of cellular energy, much like the engine of a car climbing a hill. A stressed animal had to adapt to the injuries applied by Selye. He called it the “General Adaptation Syndrome”. He used many different methods to induce stress because he wondered whether there were different responses, depending on the nature of the stressor. He found that the stress response was uniformly identical across species and was able to divide the General Adaptation Syndrome into several predictable phases, each of which was repeatable in each experiment. Not surprisingly, his studies included an array of sequential biochemical changes in the body fluids. I found these changes to be similar to the laboratory changes seen in chronically sick patients. One of his students was able to produce the syndrome by first making the animal deficient in the vitamin thiamine, thus supporting the role of energy deficiency as the causative factor. Selye suggested that human health broke down as a result of energy failure, particularly in the brain, leading to what he called “the diseases of adaptation”. It is probably true that some form of life stress is absolutely necessary for a person to contemplate suicide. Therefore, it seems necessary to discuss the mechanisms by which the brain responds to stress.

The Biological Brain

Whether we like to recognize it or not, the brain is an electrochemical machine whose functions, like any machine, require energy. The fact that the brain requires 20% of the total oxygen inhaled is an absolute indication of its energy requirement. There is much evidence that even a mild reduction influences brain activity and this will be reflected in some kind of change in thought processes and the consequent behavior resulting from it. Nutrition affects mood. A deficiency of many vitamins is associated with psychological symptoms. In some elderly patients, folate deficiency is associated with depression. Iron deficiency is associated with apathy, depression, and rapid fatigue when exercising. In several studies, an improvement in thiamine status was associated with improved mood. One of the major manifestations of obstructive sleep apnea is profound and repeated (episodic) hypoxia (insufficient oxygen) during sleep. This increase in activity in the sympathetic nervous system affects blood pressure. Thiamine deficiency induces gene expression similar to that observed in hypoxia and has been referred to as causing pseudo-hypoxia. Magnesium and thiamine deficiency have both been implicated in depression.

Hypoxia and Pseudohypoxia in Depression and Anxiety

During many years of medical practice, I found that a mild degree of thiamine deficiency was responsible for symptoms that are often regarded as psychological. Chronic anxiety and depression were regularly alleviated by getting people to understand the importance of an appropriate diet, together with the administration of supplementary vitamins, the most important of which were thiamine and magnesium. I could never understand how a patient could be actually blamed for producing symptoms beyond the comprehension of the physician. Abnormal thoughts, emotions, and all forms of mental activity are produced by electrochemical reactions that are exaggerated by a mild degree of hypoxia or pseudo-hypoxia.

Anxiety and depression are perfectly normal emotional reactions but when they are sustained for absolutely no reason, it is because of this biochemically initiated exaggeration. In particular, the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system is easily activated because any degree of oxygen lack is obviously dangerous to the organism and a fight-or-flight reflex reaction would be initiated by the perception of danger. This reflex, because of its nature, might give rise to aggressive behavior when a nursed a grievance explodes into violence. The widespread intake of empty calories, particularly in the form of sugary and fatty substances, is responsible for polysymptomatic disease in millions. Such individuals cannot handle the normal stresses of life and are much more easily imbued with a sense of hopelessness. Suicide seems to be the only option. The idea that dietary excesses might be responsible for depression and suicidal ideation is not a presently acceptable concept, but the biochemical results of alcohol and sugar ingestion are identical in the part of the brain that has to deal with these inbuilt vital reflexes.

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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, and like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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This article was published originally on June 20, 2018. 

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The Great Lyme Explosion

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Ever since I learned about connections between trehalose, the synthetic sugar now pumped into all food products (Figure 1.), and virulent infections, I could not help wondering if there were not some additional connections to be made; namely between our consumption of trehalose-laden products and the explosion in insect-borne illnesses over the last few decades. Illnesses of the tick-borne variety have become especially common here in the US, but mosquito carried illnesses seem also to be on the rise. In just a few decades, the incidence of Lyme disease has more than doubled and while we don’t talk about mosquito or other insect-borne illnesses as much in developed countries, a peek at the data suggests rates of these illnesses have tripled between 2004-2017.

Among the reasons cited for the increase in insect-borne illnesses, climate change is top among them. Shorter winters, and longer and warmer summers increase the breeding and survival capacity of the insects, their pathogens, and the animals that harbor and transport them. On the surface, this gives us little actionable information and often unleashes a political hailstorm of useless rhetoric. When we dig a little deeper, however, this may be a very important clue. For what is at the root of climate change is also at the root of a whole host of other problems, including possibly, the increase in insect-borne illnesses. It is none other than our decades-long love affair with synthetic chemicals. The chemicals we have dumped into the atmosphere, waterways, and soil and into and onto our bodies are causing a wholesale change in environmental and organismal metabolism. These chemicals impair mitochondrial functioning, diminish energy capacity and with that, reduce our ability to effectively meet the demands of living. So, when infection strikes, we are unable to clear it.

Metabolic Hypoxia

From a molecular standpoint, the constant exposure to synthetic chemicals causes a sort of functional hypoxia, for us and every other biological organism. It’s not a choking, obstructed airway kind of hypoxia, not yet anyway. It is a metabolic or cellular hypoxia that initiates slight perturbations in cellular functioning that accrue over time. Our cells breathe. They, or more specifically, the mitochondria within the cells, take the oxygen from the air we breathe and along with some nutrients convert this into usable energy. When damaged by synthetic chemicals and/or absent the nutrients, it does not matter how well we breathe, and chances are we do not breathe that well – think apnea – that oxygen cannot be used effectively. When that oxygen cannot be used, the cells become hypoxic and start sending out signals far and wide meant to mobilize more oxygen. These are meant to be short-term, stopgap survival measures until the toxicants are cleared and the nutrient-fueled enzymes kick everything back into gear. Increasingly, however, this does not happen since everything we consume or are exposed to, comes with an unhealthy dose of toxic crude and few of us consume sufficient nutrients to compensate.

What does this have to do with the increase in insect-borne illnesses? Everything. Just like us, when faced with unhealthy ecosystems, the insects and the microbes they carry enact adaptive mechanisms geared toward survival, mechanisms that ultimately favor increased virulence. Virulence from the insect’s/microbe’s perspective, if it were to have one, is nothing more than survival, the same survival we cling to, and the mechanisms, though slightly different in specifics, hold broadly to the same principles. Molecular hypoxia, the kind that develops from nutrient deficiency, is a stressor that demands survival cascades. For us, this involves inflammation, immune system re-regulation, and a myriad of molecular mechanisms designed to increase oxygen delivery and usage; think metabolic, autoimmune, cancers, and the other chronic illnesses that are endemic, including those of the insect variety. What is interesting though, is that for insects and microbes, including the microbes in our gut, the survival cascades involve the synthesis of a specific fuel that is used only as a last resort. And you guessed it, that fuel is trehalose.

It just so happens that from the year 2000 onward, we have been mass producing and consuming trehalose, the survival fuel of preference for insects, fungi, bacteria, and viruses. This is a boon for insects and microbes, but not so good for us. Before 2000, most of us would have rarely consumed trehalose and it is not something we synthesize endogenously to any great capacity. Sure the bacteria in our gut will synthesize this fuel but minimally compared to how much we consume these days (many grams or more, the data are lacking), and only when severely stressed. I have written about this sugar previously, here and here, but its likely relationship with the proliferation of insect-borne illnesses necessitates another look. Oh, and as you might expect, there is a thiamine connection.

Figure 1. Trehalose in Food Products

trehalose in foods

According to the company website: “TREHA™ trehalose can be incorporated into a wide variety of applications and is GRAS [generally accepted as safe] up to the use levels specified” above. In other words, these products can be composed of up to 5% trehalose. (Note, since originally publishing this article in 2019, the company has removed the page with this table.)

Trehalose, Thiamine, and Survival

All organisms, including the microorganisms that line every surface of our bodies and those in our gut, require thiamine (vitamin B1) to produce energy. Absent thiamine, fungi, bacteria, viruses (and insects, invertebrates, and plants), adopt secondary survival pathways using ‘rescue’ sugars for energy. The use of these rescue sugars bypasses the thiamine-dependent oxidative phosphorylation pathway. Trehalose is one of the primary rescue sugars used by microorganisms to withstand severe environmental stressors like desiccation, dehydration, heat, cold and oxidation, and a basic lack of nutrients. During times of stress, trehalose is synthesized de novo (from scratch) by most microbes. Though a simple sugar used for energy production, trehalose is essentially a preservative. It preserves the integrity of cells when nutrients are absent, hence its ability to withstand desiccation and dehydration.

In 2000, for the first time in history, trehalose was commercially produced and sold as a food additive by the chemical company Cargill. Since then, it has found its way into all types of processed foods as a sugar additive, a salt-substitute, and a preservative. It has even been bandied about as a healthy supplement for kids with Autism. From the company website:

“Trehalose is an ideal ingredient for generating exciting market possibilities for your latest product concepts and also for adding new life to existing food and beverage brands. Trehalose, a diglucose sugar found in nature, confers to certain plant and animal cells the ability to survive dehydration for decades and to restore activity soon after rehydration.

This observation has led to the use of trehalose as excipient during freeze drying of a variety of products in the pharmaceutical industry and as an ingredient for dried, baked and processed food, as well as a non-toxic cryoprotectant of vaccines and organs for surgical transplants.

It is especially well suited for sweetening nutritional drinks and other energy products used by consumers as part of their daily eating habits. As a multi-functional sugar with nearly half the sweetness of sucrose, trehalose will strongly improve the taste, texture, and appeal of your foods and beverages. Trehalose can bring out the best in your products and your processes, enhancing functionality and improving stability in several key ways.”

The downside of this wonder sugar substitute is precisely its claim to fame. It is a survival sugar. It helps microbes survive; the good ones, but most especially, the bad ones. Just last year we learned that the addition of trehalose to commercial foods is linked to the rise in treatment-resistant Clostridium difficile (c-diff). I would argue that it is also linked to the rise in glabrata infections, a nearly intractable yeast infection. Indeed, one test to determine glabrata relies on its ability to identify trehalose in the specimen. Research shows a connection to intractable tuberculosis and I suspect also that trehalose is involved with the increasing number of foodborne outbreaks in listeria, salmonella, and e coli infections.

As a survival sugar, the adaptability of organisms to activate the trehalose pathway confers virulence – survivability, even in the face of strong antibiotics. It should be no great surprise then, that when consumed in great quantities, it does just that. The question is why do only the ‘bad’ microbes seem to benefit? Wouldn’t all microorganisms benefit equally from trehalose? Perhaps not. The researchers in the C-diff study suggested that trehalose differentially affects microbe survivability and that only the most virulent and the strongest survive. They found that the most virulent strains under stress (starvation for cell culture) were able to mutate in a particular manner that allowed them to transport and metabolize more trehalose than the less virulent species of the bacteria. The mutation that developed, unregulated an enzyme involved in the trehalose to glucose conversion pathway (trehalose 6 phosphate synthase – tps1). From other research, we know that this particular enzyme is thiamine-dependent. In this case, the enzyme upregulates when thiamine is depleted.

Arguably then, host thiamine deficiency alone, absent a ready supply of exogenous trehalose, contributes greatly to the increase in highly virulent, treatment-resistant infections that we have seen over the last few decades. Standard treatment protocols which involve antibacterials, antifungals, and the like, exacerbate thiamine deficiency further by the damage done to the mitochondria. This then leads to and reinforces treatment resistance by upregulating microbial trehalose production. It is a vicious cycle.

Low Thiamine Plus Dietary Trehalose?

We know from research with plants, that thiamine does more than just divert energy synthesis away from the trehalose pathway. Thiamine signals a myriad of protective pathways to prevent pathogens from gaining a foothold in the first place. It is an immune reaction of sorts. Interestingly, thiamine not only confers a quicker response, it seems to induce a future resistance towards that pathogen. That means that thiamine elicits a faster, stronger, and longer lasting immune response, than compared to conventional antimicrobials, but it also primes or trains the immune system conferring future resistance. Of course, this is in plants, but it suggests we may be going about fighting these infections all wrong. Perhaps rather than attempting to kill everything, we ought to be bolstering host defenses.

Returning to the problem of dietary trehalose, the question remains: what happens when we combine a thiamine deficient host and a diet packed with trehalose? The modern diet is such that even without the addition of trehalose to foods, many folks exist in a state of nutritional deficiency. The trehalose only adds to these deficiencies, providing nothing more than empty calories. That alone is problematic, but because of its unique role as a microbial rescue sugar, we are now bolstering the survivability of pathogenic microbes by providing them with a ready and continuous fuel source while simultaneously starving the host of critical nutrients. It is a double hit that confers virulence, with the diet of the host as much or more responsible for the virulence of the insect-borne pathogens. One could argue based on the chemistry that the mutations in the microbes that lead to pathogenesis are controlled, not by some unique mechanism of the bacteria, but by the interaction with the host’s nutrient status.

Returning to insect-borne illnesses, are these dietary changes making us more attractive to the biting insects like ticks or mosquitoes, and once bitten, could the lack of thiamine paired with the ready supply of trehalose maximize the growth potential of the pathogens carried by these bugs? The research on this is circumstantial at best. We know that both the tick and the bacteria that lead to Lyme disease both use trehalose.  Additionally, we know that ticks and mosquitoes are attracted to both excessively high and low concentrations of lactic acid – characteristics of low thiamine and that thiamine is used prophylactically to repel insects, though the research is limited and contradictory.  Perhaps thiamine does not repel insect bites as suggested anecdotally, but rather, bolsters the host’s immune system such that it is capable of clearing any potential pathogenic infections.

Interestingly, unlike every other bacterial organism, the Lyme bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi does not appear to require thiamine to survive. Does that mean that it will survive independently of host thiamine status? Maybe. Although I suspect that as with the plant research mentioned above, host thiamine status affects the strength of the immune response to the pathogen. I also cannot help but wonder if the lack of thiamine response in the Borrelia bacteria is not some recent evolutionary adaptation to trehalose availability. Remember, trehalose is the survival sugar of choice, whose synthesis is upregulated in the absence of thiamine. Twenty years of trehalose availability for insects and microbes is akin to a millennium in larger organisms – long enough to induce genetic and certainly epigenetic changes. If this is the case, the explosion in Lyme disease is only the tip of the iceberg.

Although these connections are purely hypothetical at the moment, with little direct research to prove causation, the patterns and chemistry fit. At the very least, there is sufficient circumstantial evidence to warrant exploration. For individuals struggling with insect-borne illnesses like Lyme disease and/or with intestinal manifestations of an altered microbiome, avoiding trehalose products and maximizing nutrient intake may make all the difference in fighting these infections.

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, and like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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This article was published originally on May 28, 2019. 

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The Oceans Are Hypoxic and So Are We

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Increasingly, I am struck by the repetition of patterns across biological ecosystems. In my research on mitochondria and thiamine, I have learned that nutrient deficiencies cause a sort of molecular hypoxia; one that is due entirely to the failure of the requisite respiration enzymes to perform adequately. The hypoxia is not due to blockage or constriction of airways or related to exertion. There is plenty of oxygen floating around, at least initially. It is due solely to nutrient-starved enzymes that are incapable of processing oxygen effectively or at all. Inevitably, the hypoxia leads to inflammation and the host of other adaptive cascades endemic to modern illness.

The cause of this type of hypoxia is entirely related to the synthetic nature of the modern diet, agricultural practices, medicine, and modern living in general. It is the lack of essential nutrients available in the modern diet in combination with near-constant exposure to chemical compounds that the body recognizes as toxicants; toxicants that demand even more nutrition and energy to clear. Together, the combination of decreased nutrients with increased chemical exposures taxes the enzymes responsible for consuming oxygen; the ones responsible for converting food to energy and clearing the toxins. Overloaded, they become starved for oxygen – hypoxic – and a series of stress responses ensue. We wrote about it extensively in our book, but also in a number of articles published on Hormones Matter.

Quite similarly, soil, plant, and ocean hypoxias have become increasingly common, arguably due to the same mechanisms by which we humans have become hypoxic: a steady diet of garbage and chemicals. Modern agricultural practices bombard the soil with toxicants, depleting essential soil bacterial species, and nutrients. The depleted soil, along with those chemicals, then runs off into the waterways and oceans, where further damage ensues. Just as diseases of metabolism e.g. hypoxia are reaching epidemic proportions in human health, so too are ocean dead zones, all because of the same processes.

If we look back over the last 60 years of tracking, the number and size of oceanic dead zones have grown significantly. In the 1960s there were only 49 oceanic dead zones but in 2008, there were 405 and in 2018, that number has grown to 500 distinct sites that cumulatively mirror the size of the European Union.

“Open-ocean oxygen-minimum zones (OMZs) have expanded by an area about the size of the European Union (4.5 million km2, based on water with <70 μmol kg−1 oxygen at 200 m of depth) (10), and the volume of water completely devoid of oxygen (anoxic) has more than quadrupled over the same period.”

By some estimates, the oceans have lost an estimated 2% of the total oxygen available. In the dead zones, of course, the oxygen loss is much higher and sometimes total. There is a pattern. It is the same process. Sure, some of the chemicals are different and the exact mechanisms are species-dependent, but overall, biological systems are largely conserved, repeated ad infinitum, with only minor changes. Garbage in eventually equals hypoxia.

Industrial Food Production and Hypoxia

A year or so ago, I stumbled upon the work of a mathematician studying the decline of nutrients in algae and food crops. Through a series of experiments and a fair degree of mathematical modeling, Dr. Irakli Loladze found that plant life no longer carried the nutrient value that it once did and as a result, the organisms that rely on these plants, everything from zooplankton to humans, were becoming ill. Though there was a confluence of factors that resulted in the diminished nutrient content, the bulk of the blame rested with industrial agriculture. It seems that the shortcuts taken to increase crop yields beyond what nature allowed and the attendant chemicals used to expedite those processes, changed the elemental composition of the plants and the atmosphere within which these plants are grown. The resulting changes yield not only more starchy, sugary, and markedly less nutritious crops, but also, contribute significantly to the rising CO2 levels, which coincidentally, feeds back and encourages evermore starchy crops.

“Every leaf and every grass blade on earth makes more and more sugars as CO2 levels keep rising,” Loladze said. “We are witnessing the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history―[an] injection that dilutes other nutrients in our food supply.”

The atmospheric changes alone are troubling and result in changing ocean dynamics, with increased temperature being the most widely discussed. More subtle, but no less troubling, the higher CO2 levels increase the rate of plant photosynthesis. This, according to opponents of climate change, is a net benefit.  Unfortunately, the increased growth is in parallel with decreased nutrient density within the hyper-growing plants. Like the crops for human consumption, oceanic plant life such as algae become efficient sugar factories pulling more and more starch into their tissues. This, of course, leads to downstream problems in all aquatic life, which from a metabolic standpoint inevitably ends in hypoxia. And this is the key: the initial increased abundance is the telltale sign of molecular hypoxia, at least in humans and I would argue in other ecosystems as well. For all of the complicated explanations of hypoxia, its cause is really quite simple. It is nothing more than the culmination of a decades-long decline in food nutrients in parallel with the ever-increasing concentrations of chemical toxicants dumped into our bodies, into the waterways, and into the environment as a whole.

The growth in oceanic dead zones, where oxygen is insufficient to support life, parallels the rise of not only industrial agricultural practices but also, the decline in human health. Think obesity. Think high-calorie malnutrition where the excessive growth is representative of metabolic changes, of survival mechanisms, brought on by diminishing nutrients, and the inability to metabolize oxygen. The elevated sugar content of modern food sources changes metabolism negatively. On the surface, it looks like an excess of ‘nutrition’ and indeed, the term ‘over-nutrition’ is bandied about regularly by researchers of human metabolism and those in oceanic health too, but it is a misnomer. In reality, what we call over-nutrition represents the diminishment of actual nutrients with corresponding cell level hypoxia. It is malnutrition. In our oceans and our crops, we see a trend towards apparent nutrient density in the plant life, but only inasmuch as we consider the quantity and not the quality of nutrient availability; the size or mass of the plant versus its composition. For while it is true that industrial agricultural practices can grow bigger and more abundant crops, those crops contain more sugar than actual nutrients and those nutrients are needed for oxygenation.

In much the same way that researchers of human metabolism equate the density of calories to nutrition or over-nutrition, oceanic researchers seem to do the same. They consider the areas agricultural of agricultural runoff to be nutrient-dense, not because the algae that bloom are nutrient-dense but because the algae blooms themselves are dense. But like the plants onto which those fertilizers are heaped, the algae that grow from the runoff are also junk food. And, as with human metabolism, when sugar intake increases, vital nutrients (vitamins and minerals) decrease and so too does the ability to utilize oxygen. Metabolic hypoxia sets in. Slowly at first, but gradually and over time, it grows, becoming self-reinforcing, a death spiral of sorts, particularly when the contributing factors continue. This is the funny thing about respiration, it requires micronutrients. Just like us, the oceans have become increasingly unable to process oxygen. They are hypoxic and so are we. The question is what are we going to do about it.

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, and like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Image by João Braun from Pixabay.

This article was originally published on February 20, 2019. 

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Why Do We Use Nasal Oxygen?

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I live in a retirement home and I see many residents who are receiving nasal oxygen, so I am going to try here to address the reason. They may have been diagnosed with either heart disease or lung disease and they have probably been observed clinically to be “short of breath”. Of course, I do not know the specific reason for a given individual receiving this treatment, but does the average patient understand why he or she has to tolerate this inconvenience? I strongly suspect that they have merely been told that they need oxygen administration without explaining the underlying reason. Generally speaking, most people take for granted that they are alive and have little interest in why or how, unless their health becomes threatened. Obviously, when nasty things start to occur, they ask a physician why it is happening to them and the physician tries to diagnose the affliction. It usually winds up by the patient being told that it is disease A or B and a superficial description of the disease is provided. Each disease is regarded as having a specific treatment and a specific cure that is usually being sought by a drug company. The most up-to-date drug is offered. Unfortunately, with the exception of bacterial infection, most drugs only treat the symptoms and do not address the underlying cause. Modern research focuses almost exclusively on genetics and for the most part little consideration is given to prevention other than making a diagnosis of early disease. So why are these people receiving nasal oxygen?

Why Do We Need Oxygen?

Of course, we all understand that our environment must supply us with oxygen, water and food, without any of which we die. Although I have written about oxygen utilization in many posts on this website, it bears repetition because of what I want to say about nasal oxygen administration as described above. First of all, it must be stated that the main three gases in air are nitrogen, oxygen and inert gases. Seventy-eight percent of air is made up of nitrogen, 21% is oxygen, just under 1% is argon and the remaining part is made up of other gases such as carbon dioxide and water vapor. In other words, our oxygen intake is dosed. Too much oxygen is as lethal as none at all, illustrating the wisdom that was propounded in ancient China called Yin and Yang, not too much and not too little. The thing that always amazes me is the concise nature of the natural world and how we should fit into it. The more I get to know about the human body the more I realize how little we know. However, we do know what we do with oxygen. It is called oxidation.

Understanding Oxidation

It is surprising to me that many people appear not to understand that when a fuel burns, it is because the fuel is combining with oxygen. The result is the production of energy in the form of heat, the simple physics that we learned in school. The word oxidation is defined as “cause to combine with oxygen”. But consider that a piece of newspaper will not burst into flame by itself. It has to be ignited. If we use a match, the heat generated from striking it on a rough surface is enough to make it burst into flame and that energy in the form of the flame is transferred to the newspaper. What we are looking at is simply the transfer of energy from one action to another. Even striking the match requires the energy of the individual who performs it. But there is another factor that comes into play here. The newspaper will produce what we call ash, representing the fact that the newspaper has not been completely consumed (oxidized). I am providing these simple principles to explain now that this is exactly what happens in the body. The principles are identical: the mechanisms are different.

Cellular Oxidation

Starting with first principles, as we breathe, our lungs are taking in air and extracting oxygen from it. The oxygen is transferred into the bloodstream and picked up by combining with hemoglobin that coats red cells. This represents a transport system and the oxygen has to be delivered to each of the 70 to 100 trillion cells. This in itself is an amazing representation of the blood circulation. The deoxygenated blood is transferred to the venous circulation and transported back to be re-oxygenated. It is now that the process of oxidation takes place in the cells that have received the oxygen. To put it as simply as possible, glucose, the primary fuel, combines with oxygen to yield energy that drives the function of the cell in which the oxidation takes place. Just like the analogy of the newspaper, the combination of glucose with oxygen has to be “ignited”. Thiamine and other vitamins and minerals are the equivalent of a match. Carbon dioxide and water are the equivalent of ash from the newspaper. They have to be got rid of and so they are expired in the breath. Gasoline in a car engine has to be ignited so the explosion in a cylinder might be referred to as oxidation. The smoke in the exhaust pipe is the “ash”.

Nasal Oxygen and Hypoxia

It is my experience is that the use of nasal oxygen, although completely correct in itself, seems to be associated with ignorance of the fact that the sufferer is probably lacking the vitamins and minerals that enable the oxygen to be utilized in the body. Indeed, the lack of vitamins and minerals may be the main issue in the underlying cause of the disease, a fact that is flatly denied by the vast majority of physicians. The word for lack of oxygen in medical literature is hypoxia. The effects of thiamine deficiency, because it causes exactly the same symptoms, is referred to as pseudo-hypoxia (false lack of oxygen). In reality, the symptoms of the patient are caused by lack of oxidation, resulting in lack of cellular energy and consequently, their loss of function. Using the above analogy, it would be like holding a piece of newspaper and expecting it to burst into flame spontaneously. The most recent medical literature is full of manuscripts reporting the relationship of thiamine deficiency with chronic disease, even cancer, and various forms of traumatic surgery. It is not sufficiently recognized that the widespread ingestion of empty carbohydrate calories easily induces inefficient oxidation. This is but another reason why Dr. Marrs and I have written our book “Thiamine Deficiency Disease, Dysautonomia and High Calorie Malnutrition“, available at Amazon books. ‘

Conclusion

Why do so many individuals require nasal oxygen? With the present thought process, the patient is considered to have a condition that would benefit from its administration, perhaps heart or lung disease, operating on the present disease model. Physicians are not really thinking in terms of oxidative metabolism as the underlying mechanism. The point that we are trying to make here is that no amount of extraneously supplied oxygen will be effective unless the vitamins and minerals are present in sufficient quantity for the oxygen to be used in the creation of energy. Oxidation requires the presence of glucose, oxygen and the requisite vitamins and minerals and deficiency of any one of the three will be responsible for the symptoms.

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This article was published originally on April 5, 2018. 

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Rapidly Deteriorating Health With Thiamine Deficiency

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In May 2020, I experienced my first symptoms with what I now believe to be thiamine deficiency (beriberi). I believe other nutrient deficiencies played a role as well. This was preceded by an especially difficult several months that included a marital separation and possible COVID infection. In addition, I experienced a mild head injury during this time when my son and I accidentally collided while picking up toys together. I have a history of traumatic brain injury, so am susceptible to post-concussive syndrome from mild head trauma.

It was these factors that precipitated the downward health spiral that first began in May 2020 when I was 38 years old. Prior to this time in life, I felt my health to be good. I had gone through some very challenging mental health struggles in the past, a TBI and post-concussive syndrome, as well as a few other issues related to physical health, but for the most part, I would have considered myself to be a fit, healthy, and resilient person. I consumed a paleo diet, which I thought very nutritionally dense, and I exercised regularly. However, looking back on my history suggests risks for thiamine deficiency. Here are some factors that are part of my overall health history:

  • Five pregnancies and nine years of breastfeeding with very little multivitamin supplementation
  • Former short-term fruitarian and vegan diets for purposes of detoxification
  • Former sporadic heavy binge drinking from age 15 to 33
  • Former tobacco smoker from age 15 to 33
  • Consumed extreme amounts of candy as a child
  • Overdosed on pills three times between ages 15 and 17. The third overdose involved Serzone, which has a warning for liver damage
  • Was prescribed antibiotics at least 75 times from age 5 to 33 for chronic UTIs and bronchitis
  • Prior health problems: chronic urinary tract and kidney infections as a child and young adult, chronic bronchitis as a child, candida overgrowth, digestive problems, insomnia, anxiety, depression, PTSD, and depersonalization disorder

In May, the combination of stressors, along with likely longstanding nutrient deficiencies, precipitated a rapid downward spiral leading to multiple hospitalizations, and ultimately, what I believe was severe thiamine deficiency. At its worst, I believe I was headed toward Wernicke’s encephalopathy and heart failure. Since the best physicians could offer was Ativan, antidepressants, and a presumed multiple sclerosis diagnosis (despite a lack of evidence), it was up to me to save myself, particularly because I am a parent to five children. Through extensive internet research, I learned about thiamine deficiency and began to treat myself. This is my story.

Rapidly Disintegrating Nerve Function

The first symptom I remember experiencing was a strange tingling in the center of my chest upon standing. The next symptom was flank pain. I thought perhaps I had a kidney stone and made an appointment with my primary care. During this time, I was also intensely tired in a way I’d never been before, very pale, anxious, uncharacteristically irritable, shaky, short of breath, thirsty, lost weight, and became sweaty at random times.

At the appointment with my primary care, it was decided I would get an ultrasound of my kidneys to check for kidney stones. I didn’t make it to the ultrasound appointment because that same day I stood up after a nap and experienced sudden debilitating chest pain that felt like I was having a heart attack. It started in the area of my heart and moved to my left arm and up to the left side of my neck. I called an ambulance and was taken to the emergency room. They ruled out a heart attack and proceeded with the kidney ultrasound after I shared with them the other strange symptoms I’d been experiencing. Nothing of significance was found on the ultrasound, and I was sent home.

Shortly after that incident, I started experiencing numbness in my legs at random times during the day and night, as if they’d fallen asleep. I went into the ER again after a particularly intense experience of numbness where I felt uneasy about even standing to walk. Again, nothing was found, and I was sent home. My arms began to go numb at night while in bed, in addition to my legs. I’d wake up to this numbness, and shortly thereafter I could feel the numb sensation in my head as well.

I began to experience gastroparesis, and my intestinal motility seemed frozen at times but then would go into overdrive during the night, requiring urgent bowel movements in the middle of the night, which was not normal for me. At the same time, I could feel the sudden rapid digestive motility, I could also feel the blood flow dropping from my brain. As soon as I’d have a bowel movement, the blood flow would return to my brain. These sensations were all so strange and unnerving and unlike anything I’d previously experienced in life.

Loss of Consciousness, Compromised Speech, and Vision Changes

I went to an acupuncture appointment and shared with the practitioner what was happening. She treated me for yin deficiency. That night I woke to use the bathroom, and on the way back to my bedroom, I nearly lost consciousness for the first time. It was a terrifying experience. My ability to speak was compromised, and I tried to communicate to my daughter what was happening, but my voice was in slow motion. My vision was growing tunnel-like and dark. I thought I was having a stroke. My daughter gave me my phone, and I called an ambulance and was able to very slowly articulate what was happening as I lay on the floor, wondering if I was going to die. I was taken on a stretcher to the ER, and the diagnosis from that trip was that I’d had a panic attack. I was given Ativan and sent home. I knew that a panic attack was not the correct explanation, although I was indeed in a state of panic over my current health. I felt very strange, with strange sensations throughout my body and brain, severe anxiety, erratic heartbeats, and tachycardia.

Things grew progressively worse over the next couple days, and my mother drove me to a better hospital four hours away to hopefully get answers. By the time we arrived, I could not walk due to the total body numbness. I was given a neurological exam and had no reflexes in my knees, ankles, and feet. I was then given two bags of IV saline and felt relatively normal a few hours later. Many labs were done, but no nutrient levels were checked. I was kept overnight and examined by a neurologist, but I wasn’t experiencing symptoms during the exam. It was found that my blood sugar was abnormally low during the night (65), and I was told to improve my nutrition and sent home with no real answers.

Was it B12 Deficiency?

I started taking a B complex and multivitamin and tried to eat as healthy as possible, but during the following weeks, I continued to experience near syncope, dizziness, cardiac and GI issues, strange body sensations, and severe anxiety. I’d have pockets of time where I felt relatively normal, but symptoms always returned, and night numbness was a regular occurrence. I often felt ataxic, like I was about to lose my balance or fall. My hearing seemed to change, and my right eyelid began to twitch relentlessly. Nerve pain began in my joint junctions and felt like sparking, electrical, stinging sensations. Over the course of several days, these nerve pains began to affect the base of my spine and slowly moved up my spine to my head. It was a very painful and frightening experience.

When researching symptoms, I came across information about B12 deficiency and wondered if that is what I was dealing with, so I asked my naturopath if he would prescribe methylcobalamin that I could inject at home, and I began daily B12 injections. The nerve pain resolved after a few weeks, which was a tremendous relief. As a result of this resolution, I believed a B12 deficiency to be at the root of my problems. I continued with B12 injections after the nerve pain healed but dropped down to once weekly injections.

Another Hit to My System

Shortly after the nerve pain resolved, I got very sick with a Campylobacter infection. It was strange because no one else in my family got sick, and we’d all been eating the same meals. I went to the ER after several days of relentless diarrhea and high fever. I was given fluids and my stool was tested, which revealed the Campylobacter bacteria, and I was prescribed azithromycin. In hindsight, I wish I’d not taken the antibiotic because I believe it made my condition worse.

After the antibiotic, I felt like I was in a permanent state of semi-consciousness. I felt hypoxic, like I was being asphyxiated. When I’d start to fall asleep, I’d wake up with a jolt because it felt as though I were falling and losing blood flow to my brain. I had constant high-pitched ringing in my ears. Life became a total nightmare. My arms and legs were swirling with strange sensations I’d never felt before – paresthesias and cramping muscles. My heart was in a near constant state of palpitations with alternating bradycardia and tachycardia. When I’d roll from one side to the other in bed or stand up, my heart rate would go from 40s and 50s to 120s and 130s. It felt like my heart was constantly pounding, no matter if the rate was slow or fast. The sound was audible to me day and night, and the pounding seemed to shake my entire body. Sometimes it felt like my heart would stop for an abnormally long amount of time, then sluggishly start thumping again. I would wake up in extreme pain on whichever side I slept on. I recall using my finger oximeter one night and getting a reading of 84% oxygenation.

Maybe Multiple Sclerosis?

During this time, several doctors suggested I might have Multiple Sclerosis (MS). I had an MRI of my brain that showed no lesions, so MS was ruled out. I was eventually diagnosed with POTS by the medical community. I researched POTS and saw that extra salt was often helpful for minimizing dizziness, so I started adding salt and electrolytes to my water. It did seem to help some, so I began drinking about a gallon of water a day with 2-3 extra teaspoons of Celtic or Pink Himalayan salt and added electrolytes.

In late September 2020, my POTS symptoms resolved. My heart had normalized, and I was no longer dizzy or experiencing near syncope, but I was left with “stocking and glove” peripheral neuropathy. I had numbness from my feet up to my calves and numbness in my hands and forearms. I was relieved that the POTS symptoms were gone and felt I could tolerate the numbness and paresthesias. I still felt very weak and struggled with bacterial infections in my ears and sinuses as well as cold intolerance.

Discovering Thiamine Deficiency

Life continued this way until early November, when I decided to try R-Lipoic acid for the peripheral neuropathy and occasional spinal pain and tingling that periodically occurred. This was a devastating mistake. I ingested the first capsule in the morning and second in the evening, and within an hour of the second capsule, nerves all over my body felt like they were on fire. The only thing I’d changed that day was the lipoic acid, so I started researching contraindications to lipoic acid online and found that thiamine deficiency was a contraindication. Lipoic acid and thiamine work in tandem in the Krebs cycle, so by adding one with a deficiency of the other, it creates a draw on an already almost empty tank. In one study, when thiamine deficient rats were administered alpha lipoic acid, it created a toxic reaction. Unknowingly, I’d taken a supplement that made my situation go from difficult to much worse.

I then looked up thiamine deficiency symptoms and recognized my experience immediately in beriberi disease. I found the website, Hormones Matter, run by Dr. Derrick Lonsdale and Dr. Chandler Marrs. I began reading through the information and stories, and my belief that thiamine deficiency was the root of my problems grew stronger. Dr. Lonsdale suggests using a type of thiamine called Allithiamine (thiamine tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide), as it crosses the blood brain barrier superior to other forms of thiamine. I ordered a bottle and took a large dose of thiamine hydrochloride I had on hand before going to bed.

I didn’t sleep well that night. My nervous system felt like it had been severely damaged. I was shaking, my heart was once again beating erratically with tachycardia upon movement. The nerve pain was intense and spread throughout my entire body. The next day, I went for a short walk and nearly blacked out. The muscles in my legs were painfully cramping. I had no energy. I couldn’t even read. I went to bed that night feeling like I had a head injury.

Each day was progressively worse. I was taking thiamine hydrochloride and benfotiamine every couple of hours, but it didn’t seem to be stopping the downward spiral of symptoms. I felt like I was going to collapse. My brain was not functioning well. I was nauseous and had severe GI distress. All the symptoms I had experienced before, in addition to many new symptoms, manifested again in rapid succession. I went into the ER and attempted to explain that I believed I had a severe thiamine deficiency, hoping I would be given IV thiamine, but I was only handed a thiamine tablet, given some IV fluids and sent home.

Five days went by, and the Allithiamine arrived in the mail. By this point, I was vomiting, could barely walk, and felt like I had a traumatic brain injury. I took one 50 mg capsule and felt relief of the extreme brain injury sensations within half an hour. Encouraged, I continued to take a 50 mg capsule each time I would start to decline. The nerve pain lessened, I stopped vomiting, and my heart rate somewhat normalized, but the most profound effect of the Allithiamine was in reducing the intense brain injury sensation.

I’ve experimented with dosage and arrived at 100 mg every two waking hours being the most effective for keeping most symptoms at bay. In addition to the 100 mg of Allithiamine, I also take 150 mg benfotiamine and 50 mg magnesium glycinate every two hours, a daily high dose B complex, multivitamin, phosphatidylcholine, ubiquinol, digestive enzymes, probiotics, and fish oil. Five weeks out from taking lipoic acid, I still experience constant moderate nerve pains all over my body, problems with bacteria (eye infections, ear pain, sinus infections, sore throat), mild tachycardia upon sudden movement, pounding heart, random sweating, high fasting blood glucose (between 110 and 120), shakiness, dizziness, anxiety, weakness, and exercise and cold intolerance. The Allithiamine and benfotiamine have improved my brain function, nerve pain and paresthesias (from severe to moderate), digestion, and my ability to sleep, and I’m hopeful that with time I’ll see more improvements.

Recovering But Disillusioned With Modern Medicine

I believe the work of Dr. Chandler Marrs and Dr. Derrick Lonsdale and supplementing with Allithiamine saved my life. I believe I was headed toward Wernicke’s encephalopathy or high output heart failure before taking Allithiamine. My quality of life is currently very poor, but I have hope that recovery from beriberi and mitochondrial damage is possible. Some damage may be permanent, but I see small improvement each day, which indicates to me that more improvement is possible.

I wish so much I’d found the Hormones Matter website earlier in the course of my disease, as I’m certain things could have been more easily reversed. I hope that others might benefit from my story and avoid the horrendous decline that I experienced. Just by taking such a simple nutrient as vitamin B1, so many devastating health consequence can be avoided. Why don’t more doctors have awareness of this?

I am disillusioned with the medical community in not identifying my illness despite dozens of trips to the ER with comprehensive symptom lists in hand and visits to internists, cardiologists, and neurologists with detailed descriptions of my ailments. No one ever checked my nutrient status beyond vitamin D, iron, and zinc levels, and B12 and folate at my request. I was treated as though I had an anxiety disorder and offered anxiety medication and antidepressants.

How is it that in 2020, the only thing that comes to mind for the medical community when presented with complex neurological symptoms is MS? Time and time again, I was told I likely had MS, but my MRI clearly showed I did not. Beriberi is a well-documented condition that’s been known for hundreds of years, yet the medical community doesn’t consider it other than Wernicke’s encephalopathy in alcoholics. I hope this can change. Awareness needs to grow. I know there must be many others who have experienced similar symptoms to my own and sought help. We deserve better medical care in what is supposed to be among the most technologically advanced countries in the world. Until and unless things change, websites like Hormones Matter serve as beacons of hope. I am profoundly grateful to the work of Dr. Chandler Marrs and Dr. Derrick Lonsdale.

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COVID Notes: Reconsidering Death, Oxygen, and ATP

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I have had some difficulty finishing full research articles during this crisis. In lieu of full articles, and in order to more fully understand some connections, I have been tweeting thoughts and hypotheses – yes, tweeting. Eventually, these snippets will become articles, but in the meantime, I thought I would share them here. I have cleaned them up a bit and added a few links where relevant, but they remain largely as they were posted on Twitter.

Reconsidering Death, Oxygen, and ATP

I was contemplating death last night, not my own per se, but the notion of death. What is death or what constitutes death? And you know what? I still land squarely at the mitochondria.

Oxygen (O2) is fundamental for life and we like to think that its absence constitutes death. While its diminishment sure makes living difficult and its absence makes life impossible, there is something more fundamental required. There is one more step below the necessity of O2.

Without ATP – O2 cannot be used.

Sit with that for a moment.

We can mechanically ventilate and force-feed O2, but if there is insufficient ATP, it will not matter.

The relationship is reciprocal, of course, without O2, there can be no ATP.

But yet still, ATP is key.

Making fueling the mitochondria the single most important thing we can do to prevent death for any disease process, but especially something like COVID.

Unfortunately, virtually every treatment in the medical armament damages mitochondria (yes that includes all pharmaceuticals) – even or perhaps especially – forced ventilation (here, here, here). That is not to say that sometimes meds or mechanical ventilation are not necessary, but only that we could do better if we considered how O2 is used and what is required for O2 saturation beyond just the mechanics.

And that we could do better if we considered the damage drugs do to that process. [For that matter, we should also be considering the damage environmental chemicals do as well.]

For O2 to be used — we need ATP.

For ATP – we need functional mitochondria.

For functional mitochondria – we need micronutrients, thiamine especially. Thiamine drives the mitochondrial processing plant.

Mitochondrial nutrients
Nutrients required for mitochondrial production of ATP.

Thiamine deficiency — by itself, absent any other variables, causes hypoxia. They call it pseudohypoxia because it doesn’t match our current conceptualization of obstructive hypoxia, but it is hypoxia just the same. The only difference – it originates in the mitochondria.

From a lack of ATP, we get the inability of the mitochondria to utilize the readily available O2, which leads to more hypoxia and a crap ton of other negative sequelae. All of which we are seeing in full relief with COVID patients.

If only there was a simple solution…

Oh, that’s right, there is.

No heroics needed, just give folks IV thiamine, an IV banana bag when they come in, continue until they improve.

If they are still able to eat, throw in some protein, fat, a few carbs, and perhaps, some fat-soluble vitamins (A, D,K, for example).

To reframe – what do mitochondria need to create ATP? Nutrients plus O2.

What do mitochondria need to use O2? ATP.

So what do mitochondria need to ‘breathe’? Nutrients.

Nutrients are the missing piece in the puzzle.

Feed the mitochondria >>> prevent mitochondrial collapse >>> prevent death.

A few articles that influenced my thinking:

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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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Oxygenation, Nutrition and Cancer

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One of the most important scientists in medical research was Otto Warburg whose presentation at the 1966 Nobel Laureate conference in Lindau, Germany, was entitled “The Prime Cause and Prevention of Cancer”. Based on his meticulous experiments and independently verified thousands of times, Dr. Otto Warburg knew the prime cause of cancer. What he discovered was that oxygenation of our body cells is the key issue. A normal cell derives the energy that it uses for function by a complex series of biochemical reactions that yield energy. The normal use of oxygen results in respiration, also known as oxidation, something that takes place in the nucleus of the cell. If there is a deficiency of oxidation within the cell, energy production is by fermentation, a less efficient way of producing energy. The resulting energy deficit may be the underlying cause of the sensation that we call fatigue, as well as affecting the structure and functions of the cell that influences the process of becoming cancerous. Once a cell has become cancerous, there is no way to return it back to its normal functioning. It must be destroyed. So the key is to kill existing cancerous cells while preventing new cancerous cells from developing. It is the long term deficit over years that finally erupts as cancer and a salient preventive measure is appropriate nutrition.

Oxygenation: Key to Health or Disease

The major message is that the normal delivery of oxygen and its use in respiration within cells is vital to complete health, resting heavily on the pioneering work of Dr. Otto Warburg. Most of us give little thought to what we do with the oxygen that we extract from the air by breathing. We are aware, of course, that oxygen is picked up by the hemoglobin in our red blood cells. The action demands an intricate biochemical transfer of oxygen from the lung alveoli to those cells. They then travel in the blood stream to all our body tissues and another complex reaction transfers oxygen from the red blood cells to the cells that make up all our tissues and body organs. This transfer mechanism depends on the health of the cell membrane that is at least partly dependent on the ingestion of the vital omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAS).

Our cells, and we have between 70 and 100 trillion of them, have an extraordinarily complex structure. Each one, with the exception of red blood cells, has a nucleus, surrounded by a fluid called cytosol. The outer membrane of each cell, known as the plasma membrane, represents a potential barrier to the transfer of nutrients, including oxygen, from red blood cells to the cytosol. Oxygen, vitamins, and essential minerals then have to cross the membrane around the nucleus where respiration gives rise to an energy storage molecule called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). If this transfer is not complete, respiration declines and the cell uses fermentation in the cytosol to synthesize ATP.

This essential transfer across membranes depends on what is known as fluidity. The nearest that we can get to describing cell membrane function simply is that they require fluidity similar to the fluidity in a soap bubble, but much more complicated. Omega-6 and omega-3 PUFAS are essential oils obtained from ideal nutrition and they help in maintaining this fluidity, enabling oxygen transfer and absorption of cell nutrients to take place.

tumor hypoxia

Oxygen, the primary nutrient, then has to be consumed in the process of synthesizing ATP. It is, of course, useless to have oxygen transferred into cells if it then remains unused. The fuel that is burned (oxidation results from the combination of oxygen with a fuel) in this process is glucose and one of the vital components is vitamin B1 (thiamine), a nutrient that I have emphasized repeatedly on this forum. Deficiency of this vitamin, together with an excess of simple carbohydrate, causes the ancient scourge of beriberi.

One of the known factors in this disease was reported by Japanese investigators many years ago. They found that the oxygen saturation of arterial blood (on route to body tissues) in beriberi victims was very low. The venous oxygen saturation was very high (blood returning to the lungs for oxygenation). This means that the pickup of oxygen at the lung was poor and it was transferred to the venous circulation without doing its job in the cells. It is therefore possible that long term, low grade thiamine deficiency could well be the forerunner of cancer.

Thiamine, Cancer, Diabetes and Neurodegeneration

Recently it has been found that low dose administration of thiamine stimulates cancer cells in an animal model, while very high doses inhibit their growth. Diabetes type I is pancreatic insulin deficiency. Type II is insulin resistance. Alzheimer disease is associated with glucose metabolism and may be diabetes type III. Cancer may turn out to be diabetes type IV. Reading  between the lines, it looks as though thiamine metabolism is a key factor in causing many diseases  because of its role in oxidation. This information is also important in understanding why malnutrition, particularly involving an excess of sugar, as is common today, is causing so much functional change in millions of people.

The so-called psychosomatic symptoms are often due to the early stages of beriberi, a disease where changes in the control mechanisms of the autonomic nervous system have long been known to occur. Thus the reduction of normal oxygenation and oxidation in the production of cancer is emphasized and it may well be that we can extend the principle to the cause of many different diseases. The brain is the most oxygen consuming organ in the body so that even minor deficiencies of oxidation can affect its performance. Since the lower brain contains the mechanisms of automatic control of the autonomic endocrine axis, it could explain why so many publications in the medical literature report an association of autonomic nervous system dysfunction with a variety of organic diseases that are so common in our world today.

Considering Malnutrition in the Presence of Abundance

A little history may help us to understand why various forms of malnutrition are so easy to neglect when we fail to follow the rules set by Mother Nature. Beriberi often broke out in Japan when there was increased affluence. The reason was really quite simple. Brown rice is the full grain and the vitamins needed for processing the starch are stored in the cusps around the grain. White rice is produced by milling the cusps off the grain and this was performed at a rice mill, a relatively expensive procedure for many people. The cusps were given to feed pigs and it is paradoxical that the pigs were better fed than the humans. White rice was therefore considered to be a marker of affluence and caused many people to set the milled rice in a silver bowl and invite their friends to dinner. They did not realize that they were inducing the common dread illness that they all knew about.

Can we take a leaf out of their book and compare our affluence of today with what happened in Japan years ago? Sugar and simple carbohydrate are dangerous commodities that may well be one of the commonest causes of disease in Western civilization. Consider this together with the absence of appropriate PUFAS and other essential  nutrients and we cannot deny that malnutrition is today very much alive and well.

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Hormones Matter needs funding now. Our research funding was cut recently and because of our commitment to independent health research and journalism unbiased by commercial interests, we allow minimal advertising on the site. That means all funding must come from you, our readers. Don’t let Hormones Matter die.

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