Trying to Fool Mother Nature, Pt 3
This is a two-parter and the first half ran a bit longer than I originally intended, so if the first part gets boring, jump down to the divider for the second half. Once again, not medical advice, just sharing my personal opinions and regimen. First a tip on supplements. As I’ve often said, it’s complicated and there’s no one-size-fits-all, due to genetic and epigenetic dissimilarities, as well as nutritional gaps for the “average” person. If you’re careful to buy organic, pastured, grass fed, and wild, while avoiding processed foods and artificial oils, you should be able to save on supplements. But let me go with two ideas that apply to the majority, and one that only applies to a few.
Iron is an essential cofactor; in that it is the key to blood oxygenation. However, excess iron, or rather iron run amuck, can be a significant contributor to oxidative stress, ROS, heart disease, cancer and more. Iron needs to be in your bloodstream and minimized elsewhere. Few men and few postmenopausal women need to supplement iron. In fact most men and postmenopausal women would benefit from lowering their iron by donating blood on a regular basis. This is a modern problem. Our ancestors didn’t accumulate iron as we all seem to do today, largely because their food supply was more nutritious than it is today.
One key to controlling iron is copper, another mineral that can be damaging in excess, but it is found in organ meats, which hardly anyone eats these days, and to our detriment. So no iron supplements and a 2mg per day copper supplement would make a reasonable guideline. However, while copper is the traffic cop that keeps iron where it belongs, it is highly ineffectual without sufficient vitamin A. And by vitamin A, I mean retinol or retinyl, not beta carotene, the vitamin A found in most supplements which is called a “pro vitamin A” because your body can allegedly convert it to retinol, but it doesn’t to the degree that it is needed. So I take 5-10mg of A and 2mg of copper. I also recommend donating blood regularly, as this will reduce iron. And don’t worry, if your iron is low, the folks at the blood bank will tell you that and won’t take your blood.
A final note on copper: it competes with zinc, so supplementing copper might best include zinc at something like 6-10X your copper intake, with the two taken at different times.
A similar dependency exists between Calcium, D and K2. Calcium is needed for bones, but not in your arteries, where it can be deadly; D is perhaps the most important supplement for your immune system as well as being a cofactor in calcium metabolism, and K2 (which is made up of multiple methaquinones, abbreviated as MQ) is the traffic cop that sees that calcium stays in its lane. I take 250mg of Calcium, 5-10,000 iu of D (although I take it sporadically during the warmer months when I’m getting more sun) along with 1000mcg MQ4 and 250mcg MQ7.
Here’s sort of an odd tip, but one I can vouch for. I had significant issues with anger management for a period of several years after a serious bike crash and grade three concussion. Among my symptoms was a heightened startle reflex, something I couldn’t understand. I’d jump halfway out of my shoes if someone slammed a door or tapped me on the shoulder. I also found myself struggling to control a rage that seemed to be seething just beneath the surface, almost daily. While I hope this isn’t an issue for many of you, it’s possible that it is, especially if you’re one of my cycling buddies who has banged their crash helmet on the ground, so let’s look at it.
A guy I consider both a mentor and a veritable encyclopedia of nutritional knowledge, Chris Masterjohn PhD, recently wrote an article on that very subject. I’ll quote directly from his article, because it’s somewhat complicated and not easy to simplify. However, the solution is to take significant doses of glycine, 3-5g daily, something I started doing a few years after the accident and concussion, as an antidote for glyphosate (RoundUp), which I’ve written about before. Although I didn’t notice or fully realize it at the time, a few months after starting the glycine regimen, my startle reflex reverted back to “normal,” if there is such a thing, and my anger management issues faded away. At the time, I didn’t connect those issues to the glycine or even notice at first.
I didn’t make the connection because I didn’t have Chris’s explanation. As you read the next few paragraphs, I think this will open your eyes to the unimaginable complexity of nutritional supplementation. While glycine can be supplemented in today’s world, it was rarely needed in the past. As I’ve written before, soil depletion and the massive load of unnatural toxins, from pesticides, herbicides, lead, mercury, PCBs and even EMF radiation, have combined to make it significantly harder to be healthy these days. Topping this is genetic individuality. One of the things Chris regularly writes about, and his area of specialization, is identifying this individuality and helping each of his clients find the right “secret formula” for them. In an upcoming article, I’ll share one of my shortcuts to finding yours, without spending yourself into the poorhouse.
Here are some of Chris’s notes, which strongly suggest that dietary deficiencies, many the result of factory farming, cause a reduction in our historic acquisition of glycine, as well as its complementary and dependent nutrients. While Chris doesn’t discuss the glyphosate issue, his paper addresses the enhanced startle reflex that can result from insufficient glycine, and yet it doesn’t always. What Chris talks about, are some of the “modern” influences that reduce glycine uptake. Since glycine is connected to hormone secretion (for startle and emotional damping, such as anger management) it is clear that a lack of sufficient glycine can be a large problem, and one of the many adverse effects from the use of glyphosate. It also makes me wonder if a glycine deficiency (from factory farming as well as glyphosate) might be connected to the reduction in civility that seems rampant these days. Lest you get lost in all of this, he is suggesting that, in addition to supplementing glycine, B1, B2, B3, B6, B9, and B12 are needed to help glycine do its job:
NAD+ is needed to convert 3-phosphoglycerate from the glycolytic pathway to 3-phosphooxypyruvate, a precursor of glycine, so niacin deficiency or a respiratory chain disorder could lower glycine levels. [respiratory chain refers to a portion of the Krebs Cycle within mitochondria]
Vitamin B6 is needed to convert 3-phosphooxypyruvate to serine, and then to convert serine to glycine, so vitamin B6 deficiency could lower glycine levels.
Tetrahydrofolate, the unmethylated form of folate (vitamin B9), is needed to convert serine to glycine, so folate deficiency or the trapping of folate as methylfolate due to B12 deficiency, could hurt glycine status.
Excess methionine leads to the methylation of glycine. Removing the methyl groups from glycine requires iron, riboflavin, and unmethylated folate. Thus, excess methionine from eggs, dairy, and muscle meat, or deficiencies of iron and riboflavin, could also lower glycine status.
Methylfolate is the off-switch for the methylation of glycine, so a deficiency in synthesizing methylfolate could lower glycine status. This requires riboflavin [B2], niacin as NADPH, thiamin [B1], calcium, magnesium, glucose, and ATP. The role of ATP [the end product of the Krebs Cycle] in turn opens up the door to the importance of virtually every other nutrient and a host of genetic impairments in energy metabolism.
Nutritional deficiencies or genetic impairments in any coenzyme-A-requiring pathway (fatty acid oxidation, pyruvate dehydrogenase, branched-chain amino acid metabolism, for examples) can lead to CoA sequestration, which is resolved by peeing out glycine conjugates of the CoA-sequestering metabolic intermediates.
Benzoate is used as a preservative and in various pharmaceuticals such as acne cream, and leads to the loss of glycine in the urine during its detoxification.
Hyperammonemia could lead to the loss of glycine in the urine as a way of removing excess nitrogen from the body.
Glycine is most abundant in skin and bones, and low in other proteins. That we no longer eat nose-to-tail is a reason most of us run low in glycine.
Did you follow that? Like I said, complicated… Yeah, Chris sometimes causes me headaches with the complexity of his explanations. But the point is that glycine deficiency can be an issue all on its own, and I’m stipulating glyphosate as a confounding variable. Even if you don’t experience anger issues or an elevated startle reflex, add glyphosate to your regimen. OK, on to today’s screed…
Transmania – Defying Reality: Before I get accused of being a hater, let me state that I have exactly zero objections to homosexuals, transvestites, or even, theoretically, transsexuals. I say theoretically because, as far as I am aware, I’ve never met a transexual, but I can’t see any reason why that aspect of a person would make me dislike or disrespect them. I do have several close friends who are gay or lesbian, and I appreciate them, especially the gay men, who are therefore not competing with me for the affections of the woman I love. The information which follows is simply medical, scientific facts, which are not controversial, not in dispute by anyone, and empirically proven. They are also not meant to be the basis for any specific actions against gays, lesbians, or transexuals. God bless them all and may they have productive and happy lives. But the laws of nature and the structure of the universe are things that humans and especially lawyers, need to realize exist outside of their purview.
Let’s start here: The number of “transgender” people who are seeking mental health assistance or who have committed suicide is staggeringly above national averages.
Several states, including and led by California, are considering laws that would jail parents for refusing to allow their children to participate in hormones and surgery that can allegedly change their gender. And before I go on, let me say that such laws would violate both the state and US Constitutions, as well as being — literally — none of the government’s business. I say allegedly because gender simply cannot be changed; it is a scientific and medical impossibility. The insanity of such thought needs to be addressed, not because it is evil, although it is, but because it is insane. It bows to the idea that something that is physically, medically, and scientifically impossible, can actually be done and somehow should be done, science run amok. The idea of sexual reassignment via drugs and surgery is extremely dangerous, but it’s almost a natural outcropping from the “progress” being made in medical and pharmaceutical science, where we think “we” have powers that we don’t have and will never have. And it should serve as a caution regarding that “progress,” and I’ll tell you why: People in white lab coats are playing an incredibly dangerous game.
A person’s sex/gender is determined at the moment of conception. That fact may bother some folks, but arguing against it is just as futile as arguing against gravity. At the moment of conception, the single celled embryo has a pair of chromosomes (23 and 46) which contain either XX or XY genetic markers. As cells divide, every single cell in that body, without exception, has the same pair of either XX or XY. If you are male, every single cell in your body, without exception, is a male cell. If you are female, every single cell in your body, without exception, is a female cell. The science to change that does not exist now, nor is it likely to exist in the foreseeable future. And this parallels a lot of the errors in modern medicine, which I’ll get to in part four of this series.
Playing with hormones cannot change chromosomes. So the medically or surgically altered person, the transexual, is now living a genetic lie. They are still, 100% male or female, whichever they were born, but now have to live with the effects of artificial hormones or gender reassignment surgery for the rest of their lives, which will likely be shorter than they would otherwise have been, and that is shown in numerous clinical markers. The idea that a person can simply choose their gender is a delusion, a psychological term for believing in something demonstrably and empirically false. I have compassion for anyone in such a condition, and not so much as a drop of animosity. However, it is an extremely dangerous and damaging concept to market to children, criminally so.
The people who should be jailed are not the parents standing in the way of gender reassignment, but anyone, including doctors, who participates in this fraud. Many or perhaps all of the effects of these medications or procedures are irreversible, and potentially life-threatening. Pumping any person full of hormones attempting to create a surrogate definition of male/female, is rather like the true story of the man who put a rocket engine in the back of his car, in hopes of making it faster, who then launched himself into the side of a mountain at speeds estimated to be around 300mph. His and more stories of fatal foolishness can be found listed on the Darwin Awards website.
And why is it, with there now allegedly being 72 genders, that reassignment surgery only comes with two options?
A recent study of 2,671 trans people in their early to mid-20s living in Denmark compared them to a control group of 26,700 non-trans people. The increased risk of heart disease was significantly higher in both transgender men and women. Transgender women (men) taking estrogen had a 93% increased risk of heart problems versus control men, and a 73% higher risk when measured against control women. Transgender men (women) taking testosterone had a 110% increased risk compared with control men, and a 63% increased risk compared with control women. High blood pressure and abnormal blood lipids were the most common problems observed in the trans study subjects.
The only noticeable outcome of gender transitions will be the complete destruction of women’s sports. I’ve mentioned previously that in my years of racing triathlon and Masters swimming, where my winning record was somewhere around 15% — in other words I lost a lot — I never finished behind the female winner of my age group and probably not the female winner of the next younger wave. Had I competed as a woman, I’d have been undefeated, with more consecutive wins than the vaunted De La Salle football program. William (calling himself Lia) Thomas was an unremarkable swimmer, just barely good enough to make the UPenn men’s squad. While that likely ranked him in the top 500 college male swimmers worldwide, his chances for an NCAA championship win or an Olympic bid were simply nonexistent. Come to find out, he could beat every female NCAA swimmer, past, present or future. Who’da thunkit?
The fastest tennis serve of all time was 163.7 mph, although that is not recognized by the ATP, since it occurred at a non-sanctioned tournament. The fastest recognized serve by ATP was 148 mph. The fastest women’s serve, by contrast, was 129 mph, a near 15% disadvantage. When batters go from NCAA or Class A baseball to “The Show,” they don’t experience pitchers throwing 15% faster. The average D1 college pitcher, delivers “the heater,” a little over 90mph, with some throwing at 96 or better. Nolan Ryan, a true MLB legend, rarely threw over 100. That’s barely 4% faster than the best in Class A, and perhaps 1-2% faster than AAA.
Let’s make it even clearer. John McEnroe was roundly criticized for dismissing the idea that Serena Williams could compete on the men’s circuit. He suggested, appropriately, that she wouldn’t rank among the top 500. Numerous indignant media personalities proclaimed that John was a sexist pig talking nonsense. Except that everyone should remember that in 1972, 54-year-old Bobbie Riggs destroyed then currently internationally ranked active pro Margaret Court in straight sets, and although Riggs lost to Billie Jean King the following year, she was only just retired from professional tennis while Riggs had reached silver citizen (old geezer) status, having turned 55. Back to Serena, in 2004 at an event labeled The Battle of the Sexes, ATP’s 203rd ranked male, Karsten Braasch, spent half the day on the golf course, then consumed a six pack of beer, before taking on both of the Williams sisters, defeating Venus 6-2 and Serena 6-1. It would certainly appear from that performance that Serena might find herself competitive if she played one of the men ranked at 500 or below. That doesn’t make her a bad person nor a poor tennis player, it just makes her a woman. And if Karsten Braach, someone you never heard of, decided to claim womanhood, he could have dominated women’s tennis for years.
So how, you ask, does this relate to problems with the “progress” of modern medicine and pharmacology? The error we have made and continue to make is in thinking that there is a discreet cause, and therefore a discreet solution, to every malady affecting humans’ bodies or minds. Changing the course of a river, seeding clouds to make it rain where it otherwise wouldn’t (and then not rain where it should have) and genetically modifying crops or animals, is having and will have downstream effects that no one considered, and that only God can foresee.
But I see your eyelids drooping, so I’ll finish this thought in Part Four, coming soon.