Energy, Disease, and Aging

I recently returned from an international conference on mitochondria, cellular energy, and aging. Attendees at this conference included medical doctors, naturopaths, veterinarians, dentists, nurse practitioners, chiropractors, acupuncturists, and even a smattering of interested lay people.  They came from the U.S., Canada, Australia, Thailand, India, the Phillipines, and other nations.

Much of what we learned was necessarily technical and wouldn't be of interest to our patients and blog followers.  What will be of interest to you is how what we learned can help you live longer and healthier.  In the coming months, we will continue to expand our services in the tradition our patients have come to expect.

Meanwhile, I thought I would share with you some random notes from the conference:

What is health?  

Health is NOT the absence of symptoms.  It is NOT the absence of disease.  It is NOT the absence of abnormal tests.  

HEALTH IS THE PRESENCE OF CELLULAR ENERGY, which requires optimal oxygen utilization.  This is not the same as oxygenation.  When you come in for an appointment and we check your vital signs, we also check your oxygen saturation.  Any level less than 90% is concerning.  This is typically the result of an acute or chronic disease, such as pneumonia or COPD (also known as emphysema).  Ideal saturation is 95-100%.  However, an oxygen saturation of 100% does not mean a person is healthy.  Transporting oxygen from the air we breathe to our lungs, then to our red blood cells, then to cells throughout the body, is a critical process.  If oxygen saturation drops too low for very long, we die.  Unfortunately, far too many of us with "normal" oxygen saturation aren't fully living because our mitochondria--the power "generators" in our cells--are no longer able to fully utilize the oxygen that reaches the cells.

The Mitochondrion

"Damage to mitochondria is THE cause of aging and degenerative disease."  What is meant by "degenerative disease"?  Cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's, high blood pressure, arthritis, COPD, and much more.  Sounds like a "who's who" of diseases that hardly existed a hundred years ago.  Why has the incidence of these diseases skyrocketed in the last century?  It has everything to do with lifestyle, both personal and global.  This is the subject of an entire article by itself.

Meanwhile, what can each of us do to save our mitochondria, thus reducing our current disease burden or preventing the development of disease down the road?  Five areas of intervention were discussed:

• Diet
• Don’t eat junk unless you want to be junk.  Eat what your great grandmother would fix.
• Avoid processed foods.
• Watch the carbohydrates.  "Sugar and excess carbohydrates are the death knell to mitochondria."  We have been gratified to see increasing numbers of our own patients discover the benefits of sugar-free living over the last few years, and are pleased to see this issue gaining international attention.

• Detoxification
• Liver toxicity
• The liver is one of the body's filters.  From time to time, it could stand a good cleaning out itself.
• Many of our patients report dramatic improvements in their health after following our week-long liver detoxification protocol.
• Heavy metals
• Heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and aluminum wreak all kinds of havoc in the body.  A few common effects include fatigue, depression, hypothyroidism, testosterone deficiency, heart disease, cancer, autism, and Alzheimer's disease.
• Heavy metals are found in the water supply, food supply, antiperspirants (it's best to look for brands that do not contain aluminum), "silver" dental fillings, vaccines, cigarette smoke, car exhaust, factories, and many other sources.  Limiting exposure the best we can is critical to our long-term health.
• Even low levels of heavy metals--especially mercury--can be particularly poorly tolerated in some people.  In other words, levels of heavy metals that are considered "acceptable" by traditional authorities can be very toxic to some people.  People with autism are particularly sensitive to even small amounts of these poisons.
• Blood tests are useless for determining one's body burden of heavy metals.  Such metals circulate for less than a month after exposure, thereafter taking up residence in tissues such as the brain, thyroid, adrenal glands, bone marrow, heart, liver, and fat cells.
• The body does not have a mechanism for detoxifying heavy metals on its own.  In our office, we remove heavy metals through a remarkable process called chelation.
• All “silver” (mercury) fillings need to be removed from teeth.  Small amounts of mercury are released into the body every time we chew food or drink hot liquids.  Once these fillings are removed, a complete course of chelation will rid the body of decades of accumulated mercury and other destructive metals.

• Hormone replacement
• Testosterone, estrogen, thyroid hormones, and adrenal hormones all play important roles in mitochondrial oxygen utilization.  It should be no surprise, then, that men and women who are deficient in one or more of these hormones have more fatigue and increased chronic diseases.
• Where possible, we strive to support the body's own ability to produce adequate amounts of these important hormones.  When this is not possible--as in menopause and andropause, for example--we provide bioidentical replacements to restore healthy youthful levels.

• Stress control
• Three kinds of stress tax mitochondria, especially in the adrenal glands: mental (like studying for a big test in school), emotional (what most people think of when they hear the word "stress"), and physical (exercise, illness, surgery, unhealthy diets, etc.).
• Common offenders include too much caffeine (adrenal glands in particular do not like stimulants), too much alcohol, too much exercise, not enough sleep, toxic emotions, allergies, and sugar.

• Oxidation therapy
• Nobody with any chronic disease has optimum oxygen utilization.
• Reactive oxygen species (obtainable in our office) jump-start impaired mitochondria throughout the body.  They can also be used to facilitate joint healing.

Stay tuned for more!