Category Archives: Longevity

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“The Great Nutrient Collapse”

 

The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention.

This article reveals new data that indicates our vegetables and fruits, herbs and grasses, are increasingly becoming more and more nutrient deficient due to increased CO2 levels in our planet’s atmosphere. This re-emphasizes the dire need for wholefood supplementation in our diet. It is becoming increasingly necessary, if we wish to live long and healthy lives, that we take daily dosages of wholefood nutrients, such as those grown and produced by Standard Process Labs at their huge organic farm up in Palmyra, Wisconsin. Take a few minutes to enjoy the award-winning documentary vimeo at this site and learn more about the production of wholefood supplements. Now for the breaking news story about . . .

The great nutrient collapse

By 
09/13/2017

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Irakli Loladze is a mathematician by training, but he was in a biology lab when he encountered the puzzle that would change his life. It was in 1998, and Loladze was studying for his Ph.D. at Arizona State University. Against a backdrop of glass containers glowing with bright green algae, a biologist told Loladze and a half-dozen other graduate students that scientists had discovered something mysterious about zooplankton.
Zooplankton are microscopic animals that float in the world’s oceans and lakes, and for food they rely on algae, which are essentially tiny plants. Scientists found that they could make algae grow faster by shining more light onto them—increasing the food supply for the zooplankton, which should have flourished. But it didn’t work out that way. When the researchers shined more light on the algae, the algae grew faster, and the tiny animals had lots and lots to eat—but at a certain point they started struggling to survive. This was a paradox. More food should lead to more growth. How could more algae be a problem?
Loladze was technically in the math department, but he loved biology and couldn’t stop thinking about this. The biologists had an idea of what was going on: The increased light was making the algae grow faster, but they ended up containing fewer of the nutrients the zooplankton needed to thrive. By speeding up their growth, the researchers had essentially turned the algae into junk food. The zooplankton had plenty to eat, but their food was less nutritious, and so they were starving.
Loladze used his math training to help measure and explain the algae-zooplankton. He and his colleagues devised a model that the relationship between a food source and a grazer that depends on the food. They published that first paper in 2000. But Loladze was also captivated by a much larger question raised by the experiment: Just how far this problem might extend.“What struck me is that its application is wider,” Loladze recalled in an interview. Could the same problem affect grass and cows? What about rice and people? “It was kind of a watershed moment for me when I started thinking about human nutrition,” he said.
In the outside world, the problem isn’t that plants are suddenly getting more light: It’s that for years, they’ve been getting more carbon dioxide. Plants rely on both light and carbon dioxide to grow. If shining more light results in faster-growing, less nutritious algae—junk-food algae whose ratio of sugar to nutrients was out of whack—then it seemed logical to assume that ramping up carbon dioxide might do the same. And it could also be playing out in plants all over the planet. What might that mean for the plants that people eat?
What Loladze found is that scientists simply didn’t know. It was already well documented that CO2levels were rising in the atmosphere, but he was astonished at how little research had been done on how it affected the quality of the plants we eat. For the next 17 years, as he pursued his math career, Loladze scoured the scientific literature for any studies and data he could find. The results, as he collected them, all seemed to point in the same direction: The junk-food effect he had learned about in that Arizona lab also appeared to be occurring in fields and forests around the world. “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.”
He published those findings just a few years ago, adding to the concerns of a small but increasingly worried group of researchers who are raising unsettling questions about the future of our food supply. Could carbon dioxide have an effect on human health we haven’t accounted for yet? The answer appears to be yes—and along the way, it has steered Loladze and other scientists, directly into some of the thorniest questions in their profession, including just how hard it is to do research in a field that doesn’t quite exist yet.
IN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH, it’s been understood for some time that many of our most important foods have been getting less nutritious. Measurements of fruits and vegetables show that their minerals, vitamin and protein content has measurably dropped over the past 50 to 70 years. Researchers have generally assumed the reason is fairly straightforward: We’ve been breeding and choosing crops for higher yields, rather than nutrition, and higher-yielding crops—whether broccoli, tomatoes, or wheat—tend to be less nutrient-packed.In 2004, a landmark study of fruits and vegetables found that everything from protein to calcium, iron and vitamin C had declined significantly across most garden crops since 1950. The researchers concluded this could mostly be explained by the varieties we were choosing to grow.Loladze and a handful of other scientists have come to suspect that’s not the whole story and that the atmosphere itself may be changing the food we eat. Plants need carbon dioxide to live like humans need oxygen. And in the increasingly polarized debate about climate science, one thing that isn’t up for debate is that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising. Before the industrial revolution, the earth’s atmosphere had about 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Last year, the planet crossed over the 400 parts per million threshold; scientists predict we will likely reach 550 parts per million within the next half-century—essentially twice the amount that was in the air when Americans started farming with tractors.If you’re someone who thinks about plant growth, this seems like a good thing. It has also been useful ammunition for politicians looking for reasons to worry less about the implications of climate change. Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican who chairs the House Committee on Science, recently argued that people shouldn’t be so worried about rising CO2 levels because it’s good for plants, and what’s good for plants is good for us.

“A higher concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere would aid photosynthesis, which in turn contributes to increased plant growth,” the Texas Republican wrote. “This correlates to a greater volume of food production and better quality food.”

But as the zooplankton experiment showed, greater volume and better quality might not go hand-in-hand. In fact, they might be inversely linked. As best scientists can tell, this is what happens: Rising CO2 revs up photosynthesis, the process that helps plants transform sunlight to food. This makes plants grow, but it also leads them to pack in more carbohydrates like glucose at the expense of other nutrients that we depend on, like protein, iron and zinc.

In 2002, while a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, Loladze published a seminal research paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, a leading journal,arguing that rising CO2 and human nutrition were inextricably linked through a global shift in the quality of plants. In the paper, Loladze complained about the dearth of data: Among thousands of publications he had reviewed on plants and rising CO2, he found only one that looked specifically at how it affected the balance of nutrients in rice, a crop that billions of people rely on. (The paper, published in 1997, found a drop in zinc and iron.)

Loladze’s paper was first to tie the impact of CO2 on plant quality to human nutrition. But he also raised more questions than he answered, arguing that there were fundamental holes in the research. If these nutritional shifts were happening up and down the food chain, the phenomenon needed to be measured and understood.

For the rest of the story about how difficult it was for Loladze to find funding for such research and study — politics, of course, being the complicating factor — click on the link below.

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511

Here’s the conclusion of the article:

In 2014, Myers and a team of other scientists published a large, data-rich study in the journal Nature that looked at key crops grown at several sites in Japan, Australia and the United States that also found rising CO2 led to a drop in protein, iron and zinc. It was the first time the issue had attracted any real media attention.

“The public health implications of global climate change are difficult to predict, and we expect many surprises,” the researchers wrote. “The finding that raising atmospheric CO2 lowers the nutritional value of C3 crops is one such surprise that we can now better predict and prepare for.”

The same year―in fact, on the same day―Loladze, then teaching math at the The Catholic University of Daegu in South Korea, published his own paper, the result of more than 15 years of gathering data on the same subject. It was the largest study in the world on rising CO2 and its impact on plant nutrients. Loladze likes to describe plant science as ““noisy”―research-speak for cluttered with complicating data, through which it can be difficult to detect the signal you’re looking for. His new data set was finally big enough to see the signal through the noise, to detect the “hidden shift,” as he put it.

What he found is that his 2002 theory—or, rather, the strong suspicion he had articulated back then—appeared to be borne out. Across nearly 130 varieties of plants and more than 15,000 samples collected from experiments over the past three decades, the overall concentration of minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc and iron had dropped by 8 percent on average. The ratio of carbohydrates to minerals was going up. The plants, like the algae, were becoming junk food.

What that means for humans―whose main food intake is plants―is only just starting to be investigated. Researchers who dive into it will have to surmount obstacles like its low profile and slow pace, and a political environment where the word “climate” is enough to derail a funding conversation. It will also require entirely new bridges to be built in the world of science―a problem that Loladze himself wryly acknowledges in his own research. When his paper was finally published in 2014, Loladze listed his grant rejections in the acknowledgements.

I think you will agree that this study is crucial to the health of humanity. Thank you for staying with the lengthy article — and for visiting Standard Process’s website.

Until my next post, here’s to  your health and healing.

Anthony Palombo, DC, ACN

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for inspired and inspiring articles.

 

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The Cause of Disease and Death

My Chorale PicThe underlying cause of disease and death is living on earth instead of in heaven. And now that I have your attention, let me share with you a true story.

When I was a young man in Catholic seminary, about 15 years of age, I had a most peculiar and profound quest for a young man aspiring for a meaningful life purpose. I wanted to know what we had to do in order to stop dying. I had read the story of Creation in the Bible and was well aware of what brought death into human experience, although I didn’t understand it. Eating the “fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Really? Just eating a “forbidden fruit” has brought disease and death to the entire human species?! And an apple, at that! One of our most nutritious foods! Something wasn’t right about this story in Genesis. If it was true, however, then there must be a way to undo what our first parents did to merit such a stiff punishment.

In my simple and naïve way of thinking, it seemed to me that if eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil causes death, then it seemed to follow that we could simply stop eating this fruit and we would stop dying. I brought this curious thought to my spiritual director and he didn’t show as much interest in my mental musings as I was having at a rather deep level. He simply told me to stop thinking about such nonsense and study my Latin instead. That was that.

But that wasn’t that for me. The question did not go away but rather became a burning quest for an answer, for someone to come along and say “That’s right, and we can do just that!” I had to put my quest on the back burner for more practical and necessary endeavors, like studying for exams.

If you ask the right question, I was later to discover, you will receive the right answer. On May 20, 1967 I was attending a seminar in Applied Ontology in Baton Rouge, Louisiana when my quest came off the back burner. Ontology is the metaphysical study of the nature of being and of reality. Applied Ontology is the art and science of living the true nature of being and of reality. In other words, being who and what you really are—and not just in theory. The facilitator and dynamic speaker was Dr. William H. Bahan of the Universal Institute of Applied Ontology in Loveland, Colorado—a man who would become my professional mentor and most beloved friend. He was a doctor of Chiropractic, which I had become—but that’s another story.

Half way through the seminar, Dr. Bahan started talking about our responsibility as healers and teachers—which is what the title of doctor means—which was to bring about an increase of life in those who came to us for the healing of their ills. His chief reference turned out to be the Book of Genesis and the Story of Creation, including more specifically the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden where the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil were planted.  You can only imagine how this got my attention.

He then began to speak from a certain place of authenticity and uncanny authority about what had transpired in the Garden of Eden that led to “The Fall” of Adam and Eve from grace—the so-called “Original Sin.” I had never heard the story told from such a clear and meaningful perspective. Bill simply revealed the truth of what had happened—and, more to the point, continues to happen—to bring diseases and death into the experience of human beings.  The Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he allowed, is the “design tree” of the “Creative Process,” and it wasn’t external to Man in some fruit orchard. It is part of our very make up as stewards of the cycles of creation, which was the very reason and purpose for God creating Man in His own image and likeness. As long as we were true stewards and ate only of the fruit of the Tree of Life, we would fare well in Eden. But if we ate of the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we would “surely die.”

Then he said what I had been waiting for someone to say for a decade or more. In order to stop dying, he went on to say, we needed to stop eating this “forbidden fruit,” which he defined simply as “judgment.”  Judging the evolving forms that are being brought forth by Life through the Creative Process and then interfering with that process by imposing our own self-interested ideas as to how things could evolve if we just made this or that alteration in life’s natural and perfect design. It made such profound sense. The word “evil,” Bill explained, is more like “evol.” Evol is an unfolding of life’s design through the Creative Process. Evil is produced when we interfere with life’s design in order to produce something other than what the Creative Process had in Mind and in store for us.

It was primarily an act of disobedience and self-active determination that derailed Man’s stewardship of Creation and his enjoyment of life in the Garden of Eden. As a consequence, our creative powers were greatly diminished and we soon found ourselves out of Eden and laboring for our survival on Earth. Eden was a Heavenly abode, and we had much different forms than the animal forms we have now. These forms are subject to the evolutionary cycles of birth and death. But we are still immortal beings incarnate in these mortal bodies, which we have to shed in order to return to Paradise. In Paradise there is no death, no disease, and no suffering. One may rightly wonder why it is that we spend so much effort trying to stave off death.

This blew my mind. I was ecstatic. Could it be that simple? I didn’t sleep for three days. My quest was complete. Well, almost complete. All that remained was for me to prove it out in my living. That entailed, first of all, seeing how this applied to daily living and how I was continuing to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evol; how we human beings were still manipulating the natural creative processes and thwarting them to please our own self-centered purposes.  Then, upon seeing how I was eating this death-dealing fruit, to change my behavior.

It’s easy to see how we disobey the Creator and thwart the natural design in the way we grow our food by genetic engineering and manipulation of the soil with chemicals to produce plenty of food. Stewardship has been almost entirely abandoned for the sake of producing product. We’ve become very product oriented, the ultimate product being money and material wealth—the end made to justify the means in our irrational thinking. We’ve got to feed the masses. Yet, surely we continue to die.

But how does this apply to the way we care for our bodies. Even in our health care we are oriented in results rather than process, in relieving the symptoms of disease rather than engaging and stewarding a healing process. We have settled, it seems, for relief from our pain and suffering in lieu of healing our bodies and our lives.

THE GARDEN IS WITH US

In the Biblical story of the Fall, Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent, who alone got the curse of God upon its head. The serpent represents the brain and spinal chord, and the tree of life, along with the design tree of the knowledge of how life evolves and grows Creation, are both within our body temples. The tree of life is the endocrine system, which delivers creative energy and life’s messages to the cells by way of hormones, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evol is the brain and central nervous system which administers the design and control of life in the body. The Garden is our hearts, in which we are to keep a sweet and heavenly atmosphere for the gifts of spirit to be born through us. Our minds and bodies are the capacities for rendering stewardship in the natural world. But our consciousness is the most important aspect of our being because it can change levels. It’s our capacity to know who we are as divine beings. It can move down a level to create hell and up a level to create heaven. Heaven, then, is nothing more than a state of consciousness, as is hell.

Wow! All of this and more was packed into that weekend seminar, so you can see why I was blown away. It was way more answer to my quest than I had ever expected to receive. And I had to scramble in order to make some drastic and fundamental changes in how I practiced my healing profession. I had to switch from being the fixer, a masculine approach, to being a healer, a more feminine approach.  The fixer imposes change by manipulation. The healer coaches the client in how to nurture the healing process so that the body is allowed to make its own appropriate changes.  The former is oriented in product and results. The latter is oriented in process and growth. The one is reactive; the other proactive.

GETTING BACK INTO THE GARDEN

An interesting aspect of the story of Eden is the placing of a cherubim with a flaming sword that turned every way in the Garden guarding the way to the Tree of Life. No one could get back into the Garden and eat of the Tree of Life without encountering the angel with the flaming sword. The angel is who we are in reality. The flaming sword is the truth of love. It is the truth of love that gives birth to life. Without love and truth life is not possible, in the same way that a child cannot be born without a father and a mother. The qualities of the father and mother are reflected in the child. Life is characterized by Love and Truth. In order to know life, in other words, one must be true to the truth of love in the expression of one’s living. It is life that generates health in our bodies. It is a lack of life that produces disease and death. It is that simple.

Therefore, the only way back into the Garden of Paradise, is to let it be born through us from within. The “kingdom of heaven” is within us, the Teacher instructed us. As we are consistent in expressing the qualities of heaven in our living, heaven begins to appear around us.  Our world is a reflection of what’s in our consciousness, our heaven in other words. As above, so below. I will leave you with a sampling of what Dr. Bill Bahan offered us that weekend:

 Bill BahanWe are responsible to allow life to be born. And life is born in the parenthood of love and truth. There’s the flaming sword. That’s a great symbol. You can’t come to the Tree of Life, you can’t know life, and you can’t know yourself—because you are life. That’s who you are. You can’t know yourself except you come through that flaming sword.

 If there is anything in your expression that is not true to the truth of love, outside! You can’t get in. You can’t get by that sword if you’re identified with complaint or unhappiness or resentment or fear or jealousy. Outside! You can’t get in. The moment you’re true to the truth of love, you walk right through.

If you’re a true servant of love, of the Lord, you’re going to win. You’re going to win! I know that in relation to my service. I’m going to win. Win all the time. Love never faileth. Those who are true to the truth of love, they never fail. No such thing as failure in the Kingdom. Failures are for those who don’t want to live in the Kingdom on Earth. Those who live in it, they move and have their being with an absolute spirit of victory.

Such was the victorious spirit of Dr. William Bahan. His words were a flaming sword that turned every way, and only by being genuinely true to the truth of love could one stand comfortably in the shadow of his presence. He was love and truth in action. He was Life itself. And so are you. Come into the Garden and enjoy the gifts of Love, one of which is health; another is happiness; yet another is unconditional acceptance of who you are. Love does not judge. Love never faileth. Let love radiate without concern for results.

Here’s to  your health and healing,

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for more inspiring articles on the Golden Age we are entering.

 

 

 

 

 

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“Who Dies?”

Tony's picture 2 from Peggy

Themes and articles on death and dying are vogue these days. I noticed in the current issue of the SUN magazine a number of articles on the subject. Featured in this month’s issue on the “Dog-Eared Page” is a well-written article on death and dying.  (I always turn to the “Dog-Eared Page” first when a new issue arrives because the articles featured there are usually short and timely.) In fact, death and dying seems to be the theme of a couple of articles. “Who Dies?” is the title of this article, written in a meditative tone by Stephen and Ondrea Levine and focusing on the eternal question “Who am I?” 

We think we are our thoughts. We call our thoughts “I.” In letting go of thought, we go beyond ourselves, beyond who we imagine we are. Behind the restless movement of the mind is the stillness of being, the stillness that has no name, no reputation, nothing to protect. It is the natural mind.

I’ll return to this article shortly. But first I would like to connect with the Event of the day as we prepare to celebrate Easter this coming weekend.

EASTER IS ABOUT RESURRECTION, NOT DEATH

It certainly was for me eleven years ago when, on Easter Sunday, April 20th, 2003, I was given a new lease on life with open-heart surgery in Ft. Collins, Colorado, for which I am profoundly grateful to God and to the wonderful surgeon who held my heart in his healing hands that blessed day of personal resurrection. Life is good. It also has purpose for our health crises. For me, that purpose has revealed itself in many wonderful and fulfilling ways over the past decade.

This is “Holy Week” and tomorrow is “Good Friday” when Christians the world over pause to reflect on the crucifixion and death of their “Lord and Savior,” followed in three days by the celebration of his resurrection from the dead. Mozart’s Requem in D minor is slated for performance at our local University Methodist Church.  A local newspaper’s editor touts it as his “top choices of don’t-miss-it entertainment” (italic emphasis mine). “Make Good Friday great with Mozart,” he highlights in his plug for the event.  The church choir director describes the masterpiece as “…grand, complex, delicate at times. There are moments of fury and power. The ‘dies irae,’ which is the day of wrath, about the judgment day, is full of brass and timpani.”  Singers in the community flock to sing in the event and people will fill the church pews tomorrow to revel in the ecstatic musical inspiration—a few perhaps to ponder the meaning of life and death and to entertain once again the deeply embedded belief in a dreaded “Judgment Day” when the wrath of God is supposed to come down upon the heads of all sinners, which most who come to hear the performance are convinced they are.

SO ARISE AND SHINE 

We are so entertained by the mystery of life and death—and rightly we should be as, by and large, we do not seem to have a clue as to what either one of them is all about. The Lord of Love came here to show us how to live and how to face death victoriously and move on to greater things beyond death’s door—and to give us the “good news” that there is a larger context to our existence in his Father’s house of many mansions.  Easter gives us an opportunity each year to arise and shine our light of love into the world and to remember to shine our light every day.

MODERN MEDICINE SPOILS OUR ENTERTAINMENT

The SUN carries two other articles on death and dying.  One is an interview with journalist Katy Butler entitled “The Long Goodbye — Katy Butler On How Modern Medicine Decreases Our Chance Of A Good Death.” The title speaks for itself. In her own article later on in the issue, “The Art of Dying,” Katy tells how her father’s life was prolonged with a pacemaker only to make him live long enough for him to experience the painful miss-management of the last days of his ageing and degenerating body by medical science.  You can read the entire interview at the link above.

Reading her story, I am reminded of my own mother’s medically-induced longevity with a pacemaker that only staved off an otherwise natural and peaceful death with her children around her bed, only to see her ageing body used for further profiteering on the backs of taxpayers through the convenience of Medicare and Medicaid.  

Is my judgmental cynicism here unwarranted? Perhaps so, but must we insist upon doing things just because we can . . . and because it’s “covered by Medicare?” Our modern technology has turned us into gods “knowing good and evil” as the serpent promised Adam and Eve in the story in Genesis.  Yet, we do “surely die” in the end, as we were duly warned we would. In an ironic way, death was given to us more as a blessing than a curse: a mechanism of release from our self-made prisons. 

DEATH IS A RITE OF PASSAGE

Death, like birth, can be celebrated as the rite of passage it is from this world back into the realms of light from which we all came on our day of incarnation.  It can be another birthday, which is how I imagine our departed friends and family, along with the angels in heaven, celebrate it. Thankfully, we now have hospice care to provide peaceful and sacred space for our last days and for our transition to the other side of the veil.  But let me return to the SUN’s feature article.

“THERE IS NO PERSON IN THERE; JUST A PROCESS”

I love where Stephen and Ondrea Levine take their meditation in the end. You’ll want to read the article in its entirety on page 2 of this post.   

. . .There is no place we can solidly plant our feet and say, “This is who I am.” It is a constantly changing flow in which, moment to moment, who we think we are is born and dies. All that we would project ourselves as being is seen as transient and essentially empty of any abiding entity. There is no person in there; there is just process. Who we think we are is just another bubble in the stream. And the awareness that illuminates this process is seen for the light it is. We begin to give up identification with the mind as “I” and become the pure light of awareness, the namelessness of being.

The body dies; the mind is constantly changing. But somehow, behind it all, there is a presence, called by some “the deathless,” that is unchanging, that simply is as it is.

To become fully born is to touch this deathlessness: to experience, even for a moment, the spaciousness that goes beyond birth and death; to emerge into a world of paradox and mystery with no weapons but awareness and love .•

For me this article describes the human mind’s search for its identity and meaning. In truth, the mind has no identity or meaning of its own. It has meaning only as it is connected, activated and allowed to be used wisely by its Creator. Otherwise it is self-activated by self-centered purposes and prides itself of having an “ego” (which is Latin for “I am) that depends on bolstering compliments for its sense of worth.  The human ego is the self-active human mind. That dies, thank God— if only we would let it pass away peacefully and naturally.  But, alas, it has invented a way to stave off its demise through modern medical technology.  To what end? I ask.

We’ve made such a complicated mess of our life and death on Earth. Life is simple, as is death.  We come. We live. We ascend to return and live again in this beautiful world—or in other even more beautiful worlds.  In our Father’s house there are surely many mansions, and our souls are not limited to this one.  

In my Healing Tones blog I am considering the processes of resurrection and ascension.  Join me there for inspiring exploration of  things that must be hereafter.  Until my next post,

Here’s to your health and a happy death.

Anthony Palombo, D.C

Sources: THE SUN magazine,  April, 2014, issue 460. Visit them online at http://thesunmagazine.org. The feature article quoted herein is  “Excerpted from Who Dies?: An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying by Stephen and Ondrea Levine, copyright © 1982 by Stephen Levine. Used by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved.”

About the authors: STEPHEN AND ONDREA LEVINE live in the mountains of northern New Mexico. For more than thirty years they counseled the sick and dying and their loved ones through Conscious Living/Conscious Dying workshops, which used guided meditation combined with the teachings of Buddhism and other wisdom traditions. They have written several books together, including Who Dies?, Embracing the Beloved, and A Year to Live.  

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21-Day Purification Program Clip

View only if you want to cleanse your body temple, loose weight and clarify your thinking and your skin.

To your health and healing,

Dr. Tony Palombo

Email me for more information about the program, personal support during it, and to order the products  for the program:  tpal70@gmail.com.

P.S.  As promised, we will continue our consideration around calcium in my next post.

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Cellular Vitality

The Cell Picture

Your body is only as healthy and energetic as its cells.  Feed them well and feel your best ever.

This article is of paramount importance to your health. I encourage you to receive the product information included here with an open mind and with disengaged “spam filters.”   I use the highest grade of wholefood supplements and herbs in my professional coaching service.  What I offer here is primarily intended to benefit the health of my blog readers.  I am most thankful for the honest income I receive from any sales, but not as much as for the grateful  response I receive form clients who benefit from the supplements I recommend and they are compliant in taking as recommended.  Their price merely reflects their benchmark quality and unwavering effectiveness.  

That said . . . it is not very often that a nutritional product comes on board that simply supports the health and vitality of the basic unit of our physical anatomy — the cell.  We’ve just finished a series of articles detailing the amazing micro-machinery and micro-chemistry of the human cell.  (Click on picture to enlarge it).  If you are just coming online with my blog, you’ll want to visit these articles in the archives and be entertained while learning about the intricate and incredible life of your body’s cells.

Must-see video clips:  Click here for a 3-minute ABC special report on the inner life of the cell.  For a full 8-minute show with music click here. And don’t miss viewing David Bolinsky’s 10-minute Fantastic Voyage Inside the Cell.  It is very well done and quite entertaining.

Cellular Vitality is the name of a gluten-free wholefood supplement made by Standard Process Labs.  It is a complex, synergistic blend of B vitamins, bromelain, mushroom, berry seeds, CoQ10, ginseng, and ribonucleic acid (RNA). These ingredients offer the opportunity to support the body as a whole, with emphasis on our cellular processes specifically. ($40/90 caps)

Cellular Vitality contains:

  • American ginseng, which acts as a body tonic for the byproducts of stress
  • B vitamins, to fuel cells and participate in numerous body processes that contribute to normal function
  • Berry seeds, which contain phytochemicals, like anthocyanidins and tannins, that aid cells during the normal wear and tear of everyday function
  • Bromelain, an enzyme complex from pineapple stems and juice that modulates the body’s natural inflammatory response when taken between meals
  • Coenzyme Q10, an enzyme that is essential for creation of energy within the mitochondria of cells, and that helps protect cells from free radicals
  • Cordyceps sinensis, a mushroom powder long prized in Traditional Chinese Medicine with a variety of bioactive compounds that contribute to fatigue management and blood sugar support
  • Ribonucleic acid (RNA), compounds that can be broken apart as cells to create energy or manufacture protein†
  • Proprietary Blend: 1,240 mg  Multi-fruit Seed Powder [Ruby grape seed, blueberry seed, cranberry seed, red raspberry seed, black raspberry seed, and pomegranate seed], ribonucleic acid, mushroom powder (Cordyceps sinensis), bromelain, and American ginseng (root)
  • Other Ingredients: Quinoa sprouts, cellulose, maltodextrin, and calcium stearate.

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a story unto itself.  Let me tell you about the benefits of this vitally essential molecule.  RNA is the memory chip in the brain . . . literally.  It is generated in the brain when there is interest.  It actually records the information, like the tape in a tape recorder or a silicon chip in a computer, and files it away for future recall.  If there is no interest in what is being seen or heard, then no RNA is generated . . . and that’s why we don’t remember things we are not interested in; also why we can recall information that piqued our interest.  I think that’s amazing.  Any wonder why a elderly person who has lost interest in life itself experiences a decline in memory? If we don’t use it we lose it, and there’s a biological and biochemical reason for loss of memory that can be addressed . . . with lifestyle changes as well as nutritional supplementation.

RNA serves other purposes in the body, such as in the process of protein synthesis.  It conveys the pattern for cellular replication from the DNA.  Watch the video clip and be duly impressed by the miracle of life going on inside each of your 100 trillion cells.  You’ll want to make sure you are doing all you can to help your cells do their job.

Parkinson’s disease is a sure sign of RNA deficiency.  Supplementing with RNA is absolutely vital to address this neurotransmitter disorder, which is simply a symptom of inadequate brain-cell regeneration.  We now know that brain cells do regenerate themselves.  They just take longer to do so than other body cells.

In the video clip you saw a computer model of how protein is manufactured in every cell.  Protein is the building block of every tissue in your body.  Now you can appreciate how vital it is to keep your cells healthy and happy.  Cellular Vitality will help you nourish your body cells so they can continue into your elder years to provide you with the protein building blocks to sustain tissue regeneration and the energy to get up each morning and engage life to the fullest.

A word about proteins.  As you saw in the video clip, these building blocks of the cells and tissues of the body are assembled within the cells by their micro-machinery.  Each protein molecule is composed of what are called “amino acids.”  These are the pieces that make up proteins.  Now, they are already assembled to make up animal proteins that we take into our bodies when we consume meat.  Therefore, they have to be dis-assembled in the digestive tract before they can be taken up into the blood stream and used by the cells to re-assemble them into protein strands for our bodies.  Hydrochloric acid is what the stomach parietal cells secrete to break down meat tissue.

That takes work and energy, which is part of the reason why we feel sleepy after eating a meal containing animal protein, especially beef.  It takes a lot of energy, for instance, just to make 2.5 pH hydrochloric acid from near neutral to slightly alkaline body fluids.  And you don’t want to dilute those stomach digestive acids by eating or drinking sweets with your meat meals.  Simply drink water, preferably at room temperature and with a squeeze of lemon. Lighter proteins, such as fish, eggs, and dairy are more easily broken down.

Now, don’t over heat proteins, such as eggs, as heat toughens proteins.  Soft-boiled, poached or scrambled lightly in a little olive oil and butter is a healthful way to prepare eggs.  If you like fried eggs, try over-easy or over-medium in a little olive oil and butter.  I mix a little butter in my olive oil to facilitate fat metabolism . . . and, of course, butter adds flavor!!! You haven’t had great scrambled eggs until you’ve scrambled them in a generous amount of real butter . . .  not margarine.  Stay away from margarine which is hydroginated vegetable oil and therefore rancid.  Rancid oils, such as in stale nuts and oils exposed to light and air, destroy tissue cells upon contact.  Not good! Better for your health to just toss them out and use fresh nuts and non-hydroginated oils.

We really should never cook meat in a microwave as it alters the molecular proteins in the meat. Microwaving is okay for warming but not for cooking foods, as it takes only a few seconds to heat up most foods in a microwave oven.

About olive oil:  I read recently that Pure Olive Oil has a longer shelf life than Virgin or Extra-virgin.  It’s best for cooking as  it doesn’t have as much of the raw materials that can easily oxidize as are in less-processed oils.   Virgin and extra virgin oils are more fragile and need to be kept in dark, air-tight containers.  It’s best to purchase them in smaller bottles even though you’ll pay more.  Think of your health first.  You don’t want to slaughter those precious little cells that are hard at work keeping you healthfully in form.

Now, in vegetables and legumes, amino acids are not so tightly assembled and are therefore more readily available to protein manufacturing in our body’s cells.  Supplementing amino acids in your diet is also a viable option.  Protefood  by Standard Process ($27/90 caps) would be a smart choice, as it contains all of the amino acids required to build protein.  It’s my product of choice for clients with hypoglycemia as it checks sugar craving and supports the adrenal glands.

Fresh nuts, especially almonds, are a great source of amino acids. Soak the almonds overnight in water to soften them and to activate their natural enzymes for easier digestion and assimilation.  Always chew nuts thoroughly to break down the meat and to mix in the digestive enzyme Pepsin, which activates hydrochloric acid in the stomach for protein digestion.

“Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink!”

Let us not leave this consideration of the health and vitality of the cell without mentioning water.  Cells need water, both inside and outside.  They need pure, clean water that is easily consumed.  Acidity and toxins in tissue fluids around the cells cause them to close their intake pores and eventually die from thirst and starvation.  Poor quality of water can lead to fluid retention as the body attempts to dilute the acid with more water.

AC Carbamide is a wonderful product which Dr. Royal Lee, founder of Standard Process Labs in Palmyra, Wisconsin, formulated.  It actually neutralizes uric acid in the body fluids and joints and makes the cells more permeable to the flow of water in and out of the tissues.  I highly recommend it, especially for problems with gouty arthritis and fluid retention.  And with  CoQ10 for kidney and heart energy, you have a couple of team players working for you. AC Carbamide is a great anti-inflammatory as it addresses a common cause of inflammation: acidity of body fluids. ($18/90 caps)

Add 2 ounces of ASEA to your daily regimen and you have a comprehensive program for cell health and vitality.  Cells are happiest when they are able to communicate with the rest of the body.  Redox signaling molecules, now available in supplement form with ASEA, assures inter-cellular communication.

Well, that will do it for this post.  Plenty here to ingest and process  (pun intended).  I trust this article proves helpful to you in your health and wellness care.  Until my next post, then . . .

My best to your health and healing,

Dr. Tony Palombo

For more detailed information on products mentioned in my blogs, Google Standard Process or click here.

To order products and for information about dosages, simply drop me an email at tpal70@gmail.com, or call me at 337-802-5510.  

Visit my second blog:  Healing Tones

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The Healing Process: Series Summary Finale

THE ROLE OF THE REDOX SIGNALING MOLECULES

We have been considering the healing process in a series of articles, reviewing atomic physicist Dr. Gary Samuelson’s booklet The Science of Healing Revealed. This final installation in the series will rap up our summary of the series and review the role of the Redox Signaling Molecules in the healing process.  Enjoy!

Cleaning Up the Mess

Let us take a look once more at the cell’s clean-up crew and how important they are to the healing process. These special enzymes (proteases and antioxidants) are made to rip apart the molecules that make up the micro machinery, messengers and reactive molecules of the cell and recycle their pieces. Without them, garbage would build up everywhere inside and outside of the cells and the cells would soon die. Besides, the homeostatic balancing act in the cell absolutely depends on them. The cell is constantly manufacturing new molecules and requires a crew to take the old ones apart in order to maintain this balance.

The clean-up crew also has the job of cleaning up all of the “toxins” (left-over proteins) after the immune system or programmed suicide has kilted invaders or dysfunctional cells. In this sense, they form an essential part of the immune system also.

Regeneration of Lost Tissues

After the damage has been cleaned up and the oxidative stress condition has been corrected by eliminating the excess oxidants, there is still the job of replacing the cells that have been lost. You get the mental picture of many rows of ordered cells with holes and large gaps in them where cells have died and been cleaned up. The reconstruction is done by the cells that are surrounding the holes and gaps. Since cells are constantly sending messages back and forth between neighbors, they notice when one of their neighbors is missing. After the emergency distress condition is over in the neighborhood, the intercellular communication channels are reinforced and the holes become obvious to the neighboring cells. The cells are also free to divide and reproduce again.

At that point, the healthy neighboring cells start to divide in order to fill in the gaps, reconstructing new tissues as they go. If ample blood supply is not available for the new cells, they send out distress messengers that will cause new blood vessels to grow to supply them. The job is done when each of the cells is surrounded by their regular group of neighbors. This same simple reconstruction condition also applies to growing tubular blood vessels that supply the cells, the ring of leading cells will continue to divide and build the vessel until it encounters another blood vessel to link into.

Oxidants Play Central Roles as Messengers

How interesting it is when we can trace all of the complex mysteries of the healing process back to a simple set of rules that each of the cells follow. How interesting it is to discover the huge and important role that oxidants and antioxidants have in this healing process. When damage occurs, the oxidants become the red flags that mark out where and how much damage has been done. What would happen if the oxidants were not there to flag the damage?

Toxins, radiation, infections, cuts, scrapes, bruises, oxygen starvation and any other form of damage would go undetected and neglected without oxidants. Healing would be Impossible. It is this continual balance between the production of oxidants and reductants and their eventual elimination by the antioxidants that allows the cells to react to the damage. It is the response to the resulting imbalance of oxidants (or oxidative stress) that allows the cells and tissues to respond and heal themselves.This is the new picture emerging from the biosciences on healing.”   

This completes our series on the Healing Process.  I trust you have a better understanding of and a deeper appreciating for the healing process and the essential role the Redox Signaling Molecules play in it.  Enough, anyway, to motivate you toward ordering a couple of bottles of ASEA and keep a supply on  hand throughout the year.  Just 2 oz a day,  served up in a glass container (not metal or plastic) and taken on an empty stomach, will supply your body-cells with ample signaling molecules throughout the day. Click HERE to place your order.  

I want to thank you for your business and for following my blog.  We’re off to Colorado for three weeks vacation.  This will give you a chance to catch up with articles you haven’t had time to read or finish yet. I apologize for their length, but I wanted to be as thorough and comprehensive as possible.  I’ll be back with a new post shortly.  Until then, 

My best to you, your health and your healing,

Dr. Tony Palombo

Visit my second web blog for a meditation on Your Sacred Heart and Attunement with Sacred Sound

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The Healing Process: Series Summary

     

These next final posts will conclude my review of Dr. Gary L. Samuelson’s booklet The Science of Healing Revealed. I hope you are finding this series as fascinating as I am. Just to behold the intricacies of cellular life and understand what all goes into the healing process is awe inspiring.  So, let’s begin our summary. But first a video clip of ABC’s report on the inner life of the cell. (Enjoy the full Inner Life of the Cell with wonderful music.)

NEW INSIGHTS-THE FRAMEWORK OF THE BODY’S NATURAL HEALING PROCESS

It is now time to take a step back, and look at the whole developing picture. We have already assembled many of the edge pieces in the puzzle and put together some of the more obvious patterns. We have also placed some more pieces in this framework and examined where they might go. What do we see when we step back and stare at everything we have assembled so far? Let us look at this picture in the light that the revealed mysteries of how the body naturally heals itself will unlock the secrets of sustained health for us and the following generations.

Much of the material in this chapter should sound familiar. It is just a capitulation of the major points in this booklet all written in a few pages so that the overall picture becomes clearer.

Detecting and Locating the Damage Zone — Redox Signaling

We see a pattern: in order for the body to heal itself it must be able to detect and locate the damaged cells. This task goes to the cellular-distress messengers. These messengers are sent out in response to a distress condition inside the cell. This distress condition occurs in the cell when something interferes with the normal cellular processes and disturbs the normal homeostatic chemical balance. This homeostatic chemical balance depends on the cell being able to constantly produce the thousands of critical molecules it needs and then being able to break them down at the same rate that they are being produced. When this balance is disturbed, certain molecules are either building up in the cell or becoming depleted. These excesses or deficiencies cause transcription-factor messengers to be sent into the DNA that change certain production rates that hopefully will ultimately compensate for the imbalance. Sometimes the response includes an increase in the amount of messengers sent out to signal this condition to other cells.

We start to see that wherever we look, the most reliable indicator of cellular distress is the build-up of oxidants in the cell, a condition called “oxidative stress” that occurs universally, even in different species and plants. The simple reactive oxidants and reductants produced in the cell are formed from the sea-water molecules that fill our cells. These small reactive molecules have the capacity of strongly affecting the redox potential of the sea-water environment where all of the complex processes of life take place. They are the redox messengers that send the redox signals governing much of the healing process. These reactive molecules are mainly produced in the mitochondria during the metabolism of sugars in the same process that produces the ATP that fuels the cell.

The antioxidants that the cell manufactures in order to break down these reactive molecules are very plentiful, ubiquitous all throughout the cell. The primary function of the antioxidants is to combine and neutralize equal quantities of reductants and oxidants and keep them from damaging the sensitive areas of the cell. It soon becomes clear that these small reactive molecules, a balanced mixture of oxidants and reductants, are critical to the proper function of the cell and even more essential to the damage control mechanisms that exist inside and outside the cell.

The Cell’s Response to Damage

Careful research has been done on the effects of oxidative stress resulting from cellular damage. The overabundance of oxidants (ROS) in the cellular environment has been shown to activate several genetic buttons on the cell’s master control panel. Some of the buttons pressed are shown below (in approximate order of activation):

  • DNA Repair Button – Sends out the DNA damage detection
    and repair crew
  • Antioxidant Boost Button -Increases production of
    antioxidants
  • Stronger Intercellular Communication Button – Puts up
    stronger communication lines.
  • Increase Blood Supply Button – Opens local blood vessels wider
  • Stronger Cell Adhesion Button – Sticks the cells together stronger
  • Inflame Tissues Button – Stops the spread of damage to other cells
  • Secrete Antibiotics Button – Antibacterial countermeasures deployed
  • Stop Cell Division Button – Shuts down the cell’s ability to replicate itself
  • Send Distress Call button – Sends a distress signal to the immune system
  • More Energy to Repair Crew Button – Diverts more energy to repair processes
  • Prepare Cell for Shutdown Signal Button – Polls neighbors for final decision
  • Master Shutdown Button – Kill and dismantle the cell

If the oxidative stress condition is fixed by the repairs, then the DNA does not continue pressing more buttons; in fact it starts deactivating the buttons already pushed and returns to normal operation. It would be nice if we could press a few of these genetic buttons even if there is no oxidative stress; the “Repair DNA” and “Antioxidant Boost” button, for example, look pretty good. Perhaps we could take an “Antioxidant boost” pill that would do the job. We will discuss some of the possibilities later on.

In my next post we will review how the cell’s clean-up crew clear the way for the regeneration of new tissue and how oxidants (free radicals) play a central role as messengers.  

But before you leave my blog, enjoy Dr. Bolinski’s video clip on the fascinating life of the cell and be awed by life’s intricate design and inspired to take better care of your body. I’ve added three more clips, two that summarize what Redox Signaling is and the third one to tell you about ASEA, a  revolutionary product that I am getting behind because of its promising health and longevity benefits to my patients and clients.  I’m taking it daily and it has made a huge difference in my energy level and the quality of my sleep. Just knowing that my cells are able to communicate with one another gives my mind rest from anxiety over ageing. There’s nothing like it on the market.  Enjoy! 

Dr. Bolinski’s Fantastic Voyage inside the cell                                                  Redox Signaling Molecule     What is the  Redox Code                                    ASEA Natural Immune Support

Until next we meet, 

Here’s to your health and healing!

Dr. Tony Palombo

Click here to order ASEA: http://drpalombo@teamasea.com

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The Healing Process: Role of the Redox Signaling Molecule

Redox Regulation of the Healing Process – New Science

We have come to the crux of our considerations around the Healing Process.  In this post we will see exactly how the healing process works and what players are involved.  Again, Dr. Gary Samuelson will tell the story in his own easy-to-read words.  We will start with two video clips: one of the process called “Covalent Bonding” and the other on how free radicals and antioxidants work in order to help us better understand how “free radicals” (oxidants) do their damage and how the antioxidants neutralize and disarm them by a simple exchange of electrons between “oxidants” (electron donors ) and “reductants” (electron acceptors).  At the end of the day, restoration of balance is the goal of the healing process, as we shall see, and the “villains” of the free radicals turn out to be essential players in the process of maintaining homeostasis.  This, I promise, will be a fascinating read.  Enjoy!  (Newcomers to my blog would enjoy reading the previous posts in this series on The Healing Process for background information.)

Video clips: Covalent Bonding (4:32), Free Radicals vs Antioxidants  (4:30)

Redox Regulation of the Healing Processes-New Science

Emerging science from the past five years has solidly established that the chemical balance of small reactive redox messengers is essential to the healing process and the regulation of the immune system. These small reactive “redox” molecules participate in the same homeostatic balancing act that is used to balance the proper amount of the various proteins inside the cell (as we already have discussed). These “redox” messengers are constantly being produced, mostly by the mitochondria in the cells, and then constantly being eliminated at the same rate by a variety of protective enzymes (generally called “antioxidants“) that are strategically stationed inside and outside of the cells.

Let us more closely examine these reactive “redox” messengers for a minute. They are made from simple rearrangements of the atoms in H20, NaGI and N2 and are put together by special molecular complexes in the cell. Some examples of redox signaling molecules are H202, H02, HOCI and NO. About half of the redox messengers can be categorized as “oxidants” and the other half, in fairness, can be categorized as “reductants.”  “Reductants” is a contrived nickname, the official name being energetic “electron acceptors.” Oxidants, incidentally, can also be referred to as energetic “electron donors” in the same sense.

Not much is said about “Reductants” in the literature. In fact this nickname was just fashioned to be able to talk about this group of electron acceptors in this booklet. The basic concept, however, is very familiar to chemists and physicists. The laws of conservation of charge, mass and energy dictate that every time an oxidant is made from a neutral solution, a reductant or combination of reductants must concurrently be made to counterbalance it. The electron acceptors must balance out the electron donors. The ability of the resulting molecules to oxidize or reduce the molecules in their environment is referred to as the “redox” potential, a key player and motivator for all of the chemical reactions that take place in nature.

The name “redox” itself comes from the ability of these messengers to “REDuce” and/or “OXidize” molecules in their environment. Reduction and oxidation are chemical terms that relate to the potential that the molecules have to “give away” (oxidize) or “accept” (reduce) electrons to and from other molecules in their environment. As mentioned, all chemical reactions taking place in the cell depend on this redox potential in order to happen. Redox messengers have the ability to change the redox potential of their environment, thereby altering the chemical reactions that take place. Strong reductants and oxidants can both be harmful and destructive to the cell if they are allowed to wander around at will.

The oxidants, in particular, have made a really bad name for themselves; several of them are free radicals that have high energy, unpaired electrons that will blow apart whatever they come into contact with (like tiny molecular cannons). Oxidants will damage DNA, blow holes in cellular membranes, destroy important proteins, etc. The reductants are also hazardous, they will grab electrons away from molecules (with the ferocity of small molecular sharks), thereby causing destruction. To be perfectly clear, reductants are not antioxidants. Reductants are simply the chemical counterparts of oxidants (much like acids and bases). Antioxidants, on the other hand, are a class of much larger organic molecules produced by genetic coding that act as catalysts capable of facilitating the reverse chemical processes needed to ultimately “untie” and neutralize both the oxidants and the reductants. Antioxidant cycles require both oxidants and reductants in order to work correctly.

Let us focus on the antioxidants for a minute. The antioxidants were historically considered as the heroes of the cell because they broke down the harmful oxidants by pulling them in and neutralizing them together with reductants, leaving just common harmless sea-water molecules in their wake. Over an antioxidant cycle (some of which are complex multi-step processes) the oxidants and reductants are neutralized [view clip], however the antioxidant itself remains unchanged, ready to do it all over again to the next set of oxidants and reductants. The antioxidant in this sense is a catalyst that speeds up the neutralization of oxidants with reductants and yet of itself remains unchanged. You can think of an antioxidant as a black box: reactive and potentially dangerous oxidants and reductants go into the box and harmless neutral sea-water molecules come out.

Ironically, the oxidants (that historically have been thought to be the villains) are now seen as central players to the healthy function of the cells. We have recently learned that we would not be able to live without either the reactive oxidants or the reductants. The truth be told, these tiny reactive molecules play an absolutely essential messenger role in our cells and tissues [my underscore]. The most critical aspect of healthy redox-messenger balance is in that the oxidants and reductants must be produced and eliminated in perfectly-balanced and equal portions. As long as there are equal portions of oxidants and reductants in the interior or exterior of the cell, the antioxidants can readily neutralize them both as fast as they are created. As discussed, the antioxidants need equal portions of oxidants and reductants in order to function, in the case of Glutathione (an abundant antioxidant made in our cells). The large mouth of the relatively huge antioxidant molecule lures in a reductant (that is electron hungry) and then lures in an oxidant (that has an energetic electron to donate) and then pulls them both together into the “active site” in the middle. At the active site, the reductant and oxidant are combined together, neutralizing them both. The resulting harmless molecules float away.  The antioxidant is then free to do it all again. If there is an ample supply of reductants and oxidants in the neighborhood, one antioxidant molecule can typically neutralize tens of millions of oxidant molecules every second, as measured in the lab.  [Emphasis and underscores mine]

This was a eye-opener for me when I first read it, and I believe it is crucial to a better understanding of homeostasis.  There are no “good” and “bad” players in this microcosm of the biological universe that comprises our bodies.  There’s only “appropriate” and “inappropriate” based on place and timing, balance and imbalance.  To quote a poet friend and colleague, “Nothing is wrong.  Everything matters.”  

The antioxidants are purposefully manufactured, sent to and positioned around the areas of the cell, such as the nucleus, that are vulnerable to oxidative damage. As equal portions of oxidants and reductants approach these protected areas, the antioxidants standing guard around these areas pull them in and neutralize them both. The antioxidants are thus able to keep these potentially harmful reactive molecules away from protected areas and corral and use them for their own best purposes. Consequently, the immune system uses large amounts of such oxidants, along with strong demolition enzymes, as its weapon of choice against harmful invading bacteria and viruses. The foreign invaders do not even stand a chance against these potent weapons. After the invaders have been torn apart and destroyed by the enzymes and oxidants, the surrounding antioxidants standing guard and other enzymes clean up the mess, toxins and hazards.

THE HEALING PROCESS DESCRIBED

The key to understanding how this redox balancing process helps the body heal itself comes when considering what happens when the cells become damaged or defective for some reason or another. There are thousands of different processes with thousands of different proteins taking place everywhere inside the cell. When something is not working right, how does the cell detect the damage? The answer lies in the fact that as the normal homeostatic balance that exists in healthy cells is disturbed, somewhere in the cell there is either a build-up or deficiency of the normal quantity of proteins. There is a high probability that this
growing imbalance will at some point make the metabolism of sugars less efficient. When this happens, the redox-messenger production in the mitochondria becomes unbalanced, producing many more oxidants than reductants or vice versa. In other words, the damage will ultimately manifest itself as a build–up of oxidants or reductants. This condition is called “oxidative stress” and is a real phenomenon seen (under the microscope) to occur in almost all defective or stressed cells (in both animals and plants).

An imbalance in the redox messengers, usually manifesting itself as oxidative stress, sends a clear signal that damage has occurred somewhere and that the cell is defective. The excess oxidants are not balanced by reductants and cannot be effectively neutralized by antioxidants. These oxidants end up causing even more damage to other parts of the cell. This clear signal for help causes the DNA to code for the “fix–it crew” and cytokine messengers that are sent out to alert the immune system. If this imbalance (oxidative stress condition) is not corrected by the attempts of the fix–it crew, the oxidants continue to build up. Then after about two hours, the fatally damaged cell starts a “programmed cell suicide” cascade (apoptosis) that will end up with the cell killing and dismantling itself. This is not a bad thing. Normal healthy neighboring cells will then be able to divide in order to fill in the vacancy. On the microscopic scale, this is essentially the healing process. [my underscore]

The oxidative stress condition in a stressed or damaged cell also causes the DNA to code for messengers to be sent to neighboring cells, advising them of its condition. Redox messengers can also be used as these intercellular messengers. If the damaged cell, such as those found in tumors, is not able to kill itself, then its neighboring healthy cells will send back “death domain” messengers as well as distress messengers to the immune system that will either cause the damaged cell to die or to be attacked by the immune system. This system is regularly used to detect and destroy practically all of the damaged and dysfunctional cells in the body. Remember, it only takes one undetected dysfunctional cell, out of the trillions that are successfully detected and killed, to start seeding an abnormal growth.”

This brings our series to a turning point.  The posts that will follow will look at the role of the immune system in healing and how this system is activated by the Redox Signaling Molecules.   View this video clip to prepare for the next consideration.

Clip:  The Healing Revolution – the Science Behind ASEA.

To your health and healing,

Dr. Tony Palombo

For information on ordering ASEA, click here.


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The Healing Process: Signaling Messengers and Diabetes

Redox Signaling Messengers

Like any community, the body cells depend on communication for their coordinated and harmonious function together. Communication depends on messengers, both inside the cell between the various actors and “micro machines”  and outside the cell between the one-hundred-billion cells that compose our bodies.  These next few posts will be about these messengers, most recently discovered among them being the Redox Signaling Messengers that turn out to be a most important players in the healing process.  We will have a look at a very significant scientific breakthrough in the field of health and healing.  Again, we will call upon Dr. Gary L. Samuelson to help us envision and understand the Healing Process as he presents it in his recently released booklet, The Science of Healing Revealed – New Insights into Redox Signaling.

How the Actors Work Together – The Signaling Messengers

So far in our abbreviated organization chart, a small sample of the cast of actors has been put together in order to provide a tiny taste of what they look like and what they do. There are thousands more (not listed, thankfully) that fill major roles inside and outside the cell; and the list is growing every day as new actors and roles are being discovered. The real story, however, lies not so much in what they look like or what their job description is, but in how they interact with each other and how they determine when and where to do their job.

For the most part, the cellular micro machinery is controlled by the various signaling messengers, as has already been mentioned, that go about carrying messages inside the individual cells (intracellular communication) as well as carrying messages between the cells (intercellular communication). As has also been mentioned, the very identity and behavior of the cell depends on the quantities and types of messengers being passed around in its surrounding environment.

The inner-cell (intracellular) messengers float around inside the seawater solution (cytosol) inside the cells. There are generally two types of intracellular messengers: (1) protein messengers that are coded by the DNA and built, delivered, passed around and modified by enzymes and cellular machinery and (2) a recently discovered network of messengers called “redox signaling and regulation” messengers made out of small, highly reactive molecules (ROS and RS) that are formed by the REDuction” and “OXidation'” (redox) of the very sea-water bath that surrounds all of this cellular machinery. These messengers modify the behavior of the machinery by changing the chemical potential in the salt-water environment where all of this machinery exists. Since these “redox” messengers are integrally involved in the healing process, they will be the topic of further investigation in this booklet.

The between-cell (intercellular) messengers are passed back and forth between cells. In order for them to work they must be able to leave one cell and “latch onto” or pass into surrounding cells. There are specific places built into the outer membranes of the cells, called “receptors” and “co-receptors,” where these messengers are allowed to “latch onto” the outside of the cell. Each different type of messenger molecule (called agonist) has its own custom-built latch (receptor) that allows it to pass a signal into the cell.

In many cases, the receptor itself, when latched, will cause intracellular messengers to be released to continue carrying the message into the cell. Most cells are stuck together with a scaffolding of adhesive molecules that allow messages to more easily be passed around among neighboring cells.

Redox messengers are able to alter the chemistry of the receptor latches that can either enhance or inhibit their ability to latch onto their messengers and pass messages into the cell. Sometimes the presence of these redox messengers themselves will spontaneously trigger a receptor to send messages into the cell.

In my next post we will explore further some amazing technology that has made it possible for us to enhance intra-and-inter-cellular communication.  Before leaving my blog, take a few minutes to view this video clip on the Redox Signaling Molecule (5 min).

Besides giving a visual demonstration of how these signaling messengers work, this clip presents recent groundbreaking technology that is being used to stabilize these highly reactive molecules outside the body and then use them as bio-active, non-toxic agents inside the body to assist in the healing process.

The end result of this research is a formulated “water” called “ASEA” that is now available to the public through network marketing.  I have become an associate distributor of this product because of the great promise it holds for my patients and clients at a foundational level in their healing and health maintenance, offering new solutions to longevity and quality of healthful living.  It also gives people a tool they can use safely and obtain directly from the company without the requirement of becoming a network marketer themselves, although that is available as well as a home-based business with minimal investment.  So, enjoy the clip! Until next week then, my best wishes . . .

To your health and healing,

Dr. Tony Palombo

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The Healing Process: The Cell, Part 3 Communication

The Signaling Messengers

We’ve been entertained and edified by the inner life of the cell — how it’s “micro machinery” makes protein molecules from amino acids in the ribosomes and produces its own energy (ATP) in the mitochondria.  We will now move on to learn how these inner parts of the cells communicate with one another, as well as how the cells communicate among themselves and with the various systems of the body.  Again, I will call upon Dr. Gary Samuelson to help tell the story from his booklet The Science of Healing Revealed – New Insights into Redox Signaling.

Looking at the simple molecular keys that control the kinase fuel gates that energize the machinery in the living cell gives us a first glimpse at a very important class of molecules and proteins that act as messengers that are sent off to make sure specific things happen or do not happen. As can be imagined, these signaling messengers serve a very important role in the working of the cells. They send signals between the machinery in the cell that determines how the cell’s machinery operates and responds to the normal changes in its environment as well as drastic alarms like threats, damage, lack of oxygen, changes in temperature, the arrival of a nerve signal, etc. They can also be sent as long distance messengers to send signals between cells and tissues, as well as general messengers released into the blood and lymph that affect the working of whole systems throughout the entire body, like adrenaline for example. A few of these are listed below. The rest of this booklet, however, is focused on the emerging science that explains, in part, how signaling messengers do what they do and the processes that keeps them controlled and balanced when the body is healthy.

Redox messengers – Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) and Reduced SpeCies (RS) — The smallest and most fundamental universal signaling molecules in the body are the simple but extremely important reactive molecules that are formed from combinations of the atoms (Na, CI, H, 0, N) readily found in the salt water bath that fills the inside of the cells (cytosol). All of life’s players mentioned so far float around in this bath and can be surrounded by a balanced mixture of these reactive molecules…. “

Dr. Samuelson lists a few of these reactive molecules, such as Superoxide,  Hydrogen Peroxide, Hypochiorous Acid, Nitric Oxide, only four of some 20 of them.  Then there are these players:

Charged metal ions – Their movement alone makes the electric current that carries signals along our nerves and muscles. They also play signaling roles in hundreds of different life processes. Three examples or these are the Calcium ion (Ca2+), the Potassium ion (K+) and Sodium ion (Na+).

Cytokines  – The messengers that activate and regulate the immune system, controlling inflammation, white blood cell movement and natural cell death; Interleukins (regulate immune cells); Interferons (identify invaders,viruses).

Then there are the Endocrine messengers that control and regulate digestion, metabolism and organ function: Adrenaline, Insulin, Gastrin.  And the Hormone messengers that determine tissue growth and reproductive function: Testosterone, Estrogen and Progesterone.

Another group of fascinating players in the life of the cell are what are called the “Transcription Factors.“ These messengers cause the DNA inside the nucleus to call for increased production or reduction of certain specific proteins: NF-kappaB calls for inflammation; NRF2 calls for antioxidants; and TNF calls for tumor death.

Enzymes – the “break-it-down clean-it-up and recycle-it crew.”

There are enzymes in the cell that are assigned to the clean-up and recycling crew. They speed up the elimination of the cell’s “garbage,” breaking down the unneeded or excess molecules into smaller useful components.  Without these enzymes we would quickly die from the accumulation of excessive and possibly harmful unneeded molecules inside the cells.  They also protect the cells by breaking down toxins that come in from the outside environment.

In a very real sense, these enzymes are more than just the garbage disposal crew, they form an indispensable part of the system that maintains the chemical balance needed to sustain all of the life-critical processes that take place inside the cells. In the cell, molecules (large and small) are constantly in the process of being built up from smaller pieces and then torn back down into smaller pieces again.

Antioxiants – “The clean-up crew that is placed strategically in the cell, like guardians, to break down and eliminate the oxidants that would otherwise accumulate and cause damage.” They are: Glutathione Peroxldase (GPx) that breaks down various oxidants (free radicals), Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) that breaks down superoxides, and Catalase that breaks down hydrogen peroxide.

Proteases– The large protein break-it-down crew, used as digestive enzymes to break down food and used by cells to break down unneeded or defective proteins.  They are Trypsin, Chyotrypsin and Pepsinogen.

Other “Staff Members” are: Collagen, Cholesterol, Glucose, Triglycerides, Prostaglandin, Quinine, Oleic Acid, Cocaine, Caffeine, Levidopa, and Histamine.

As we can see, there are many and varied types of “actors” playing various and sundry roles to make life possible in our bodies so that we can live and serve in this earthly plane of existence.  It’s helpful to have them placed in a context the way Dr. Samuelson does in his booklet.

In my next post we will learn how all these actors work together via the signaling messengers, whose crucial role it is to keep all the actors in touch with one another and all the systems of the body well-informed on what’s going on with each part and within the whole body. Then we will be prepared to study and learn the important role chemical balance plays in the healing process, and how the body keeps everything balanced.  Until then,  if you haven’t viewed it already, take the time now to enjoy David Bolinsky’s “Fantastic Voyage Inside the Cell” (10 min).

My best to your health and healing,

Dr. Tony Palombo