Understanding Degenerative Disease
Diseases, infectious as well as degenerative, are not incomprehensible mysteries, nor are they inevitable.
The condition of our cells and the state of our immune systems determine how our bodies react to the myriad toxic agents they are continually exposed to.
From the moment we are conceived, the processes of life are carried out following the blueprint contained in our DNA. The DNA holds the genetic code for our life, health, and the physical features of our bodies. DNA, unless it has become mutated, conceives our body in a perfected state, and our cells are always striving to achieve that perfection.
So what goes wrong?
Acids and Free Radicals
Free radicals and acids are virtually the same in that they both have the same effects on the body.
Free radicals are atoms or molecules (groups of atoms bound together by shared electrons) which have lost electrons and have unpaired electrons in their outermost orbits or shells, and which, while in that unbalanced state, are seeking to gain electrons from another source in order to become stable.
Acids contain positively charged hydrogen ions (protons), while free radicals can be positively charged ions of any element or molecule, (although not all positively charged ions are free radicals.) In order to be free radicals, they must be unstable in addition to being positively charged. For example, the ion of calcium is positively charged (Ca++), but the outer shell is composed of 8 electrons with no unpaired electrons, so the ion is stable and not looking to replace electrons and therefore not a free radical.
The positively charged oxygen radical is called Super-Oxide. It is the most plentiful, aggressive and damaging free radical of them all. "Antioxidant" is the term that was originally coined to name a substance that can neutralize the oxygen radical, although the term is used to indicate any substance that can neutralize any free radical.
Most commonly free radical damage occurs near the DNA of the cells. Once an electron is taken from an atom or molecule, that formerly stable atom or molecule is now a positively charged free radical, which in turn will be compelled to neutralize itself by taking electrons from another stable atom or molecule.
The free radical/acidosis process repeats as a chain reaction which, if not stopped, will eventually result in the death of the body (acidosis is the term for the condition in which your body's fluids are acidic).
The damage that occurs from free radicals/acidosis is due to the fact that whenever an atom or molecule is split apart, energy is released. This is the same principle our body uses to produce energy from the breakdown, or splitting of the molecules in the food we eat, but that is done in a controlled way within the mitochondria of the cell, and the energy released is channelled for use by the body. But the energy released when electrons are torn from atoms and molecules due to acids or free radicals produces tiny, uncontrolled atomic explosions which damage or kill cells. If the cells live they will mutate, and when the mutated cells replicate themselves, the daughter cells will have the same genetic defects as the mother cells - a process that leads to cancer and other degenerative diseases.
One can see the damage done by acidosis in a live blood cell analysis under a microscope. Red blood corpuscles, normally round, after free radical damage, look like cookies with big bites taken out of them. This is called poikilocytosis.
Damage associated with acids does not come only from direct attack on cells. When the body fluids become acidic, the ability of the blood to carry oxygen is severely compromised... and this is disastrous because every cell of the body needs abundant oxygen continually.
The primary cause of all disease is oxygen deficiency, which is brought about by other causes such as the acidosis mentioned above, which is brought about by free radical damage which is allowed by diets deficient in anti-oxidants.
So then, the ultimate cause of all disease is nutritional deficiency.
When nutrition is consistently and correctly applied, all functions will fall into place. Acids, free radicals, bad bacteria, viruses, yeasts, and funguses will be neutralized, oxygen and other essential nutrients will be provided to the cells in due measure, and wastes will be eliminated effectively.
When a person has a heart attack it is because the cells that make up the heart muscle have been deprived of oxygen and can no longer function.
The same continuous oxygen requirement applies to every single cell in every single organ, gland, muscle, nerve, and bone in our bodies. You can go without food for months. You can go without water for days. But no matter how healthy you are, if you stop breathing for several minutes, you die. And that is exactly what happens with acidosis, except it happens slowly over an extended period of time.
The deficiency of oxygen caused by an acidic environment combined with the direct damage due to the acids causes degeneration that will continue to get worse until it kills you... unless you make the changes necessary to correct the condition.
Free Radical and Acid Damage
It is known that free radical damage is the leading cause of cancer, whether it be from smoking (one puff of smoke introduces 375,000 free radicals into the body), overexposure to the sun, eating burnt meats, heated oils, or the effects of any toxic substance acquired from diet, air, or absorption through the skin. Also, acids and free radicals are produced by the body's own metabolism. For example, the carbon dioxide formed during the metabolic process produces carbonic acid when dissolved in the blood. Exercise produces lactic acid in the muscles due to the breakdown of glycogen, which causes muscle pain. A by-product of meat metabolism is uric acid, which causes problems if not neutralized - gout or fibromyalgia, for example.
The body has a system in place to deal with free radicals and acids - but only when sufficient amounts of the proper minerals and other nutrients are available. If they are not, the body will pull the minerals it needs to survive out of the bones and the cells of organs and tissues.
Just to show you the effects of acids on bone, take some vinegar and place a chicken bone in it - after a while the acid will leach the minerals out of the bone (the electrically imbalanced atoms making up the acid need the minerals from the bone as electron donors in order to achieve balance), leaving the bone flexible, and when it dries out it will be brittle. Acids have the same effect on the bones in our bodies — and it's called osteoporosis.
I'm sure it will sound crazy to a person suffering from that disease, but osteoporosis is a good thing. Why this is so is because the leaching of minerals from the bones has actually saved his or her life. If people didn't have a "buffer reserve" of minerals in their bones to draw from to neutralize the acids, their pH would fall below the level necessary to support life, and they would have died. The body's fluids must remain between 7.0 and 7.8 pH in order to be healthy, and the levels of the blood must remain between 7.35 and 7.45 pH or else you die. It's a narrow range with very little tolerance.
Osteoporosis saving a person's life is not to be confused with the body healing itself. Osteoporosis is a degenerative disease. The body is giving itself a disease as an alternative to dying. The body is prioritizing its use of minerals to keep you alive. It's more important to neutralize the acids even at the expense of the bones than to lose your life, and your great subconscious is wise enough to make that distinction and that decision. But keeping a person alive is vastly different than healing that person and bringing him or her to real health.
The body has the miraculous ability to heal itself... but only when internal conditions are correct and the proper nutrients are consistently available!
This story will help you understand the healing process:
Suppose you cut your finger. It didn't seem bad, so you didn't bother bandaging or even washing it. Under normal circumstances, the body cleans, disinfects, and heals the wound so completely that even the fingerprint will be restored to exactly the way it was before it was cut. The code for your finger (and every other part of your body as well) is stored in your DNA, and when your immune system and other cells go to work to repair the damage, they restore the damaged part to that perfection.
But suppose you had heart disease. Isn't that a wound? Why doesn't the same healing process apply? Why doesn't the body heal itself of that disease? Doesn't the DNA include the code for the perfect heart?
The fact is, the same principles do apply to heart disease and all degenerative diseases. But the reason we don't just heal is because degenerative disease is maintained by continual wounding. Going back to our example, if every time the cut on your finger began to heal you cut it open again with a razor blade...again and again, it could not heal. So the first principle of healing must be: You have to eliminate the cause of the wound before any healing can take place. The same is true for heart disease and every other degenerative disease which are being maintained by the continual wounding by acids.
The body is trying to regenerate the damaged areas of the heart, but the acid condition is also destroying the new cells being created... the heart cannot heal. There is not a single drug, therapy, or treatment that can bring about the healing or regeneration of the heart - and there never will be. The heart can only regenerate when the internal acidic environment is corrected and the body is provided with the necessary nutritional building blocks.
The body is regenerating every minute you are alive, but if the wounding or destruction of the cells occurs at a faster rate than they can be replaced, you have degeneration. Degeneration means you're dying. And it's the direct effect of acids on the cells of your body.
Some people tell us they don't need nutritional supplements, because they're doing well enough without them. Sometimes they reluctantly admit... maybe they do have a "little arthritis" or whatever, but they're really not concerned about it. Well, they should be concerned!
They should realise they don't just have a little arthritis or whatever. What they have is the beginning of the disease that is going to kill them eventually, and they should be concerned now, when it's in the early stages, when they can more easily do something about it. Later it will be much more difficult. Furthermore, the same acid process that is destroying their joints is working on all their organs, muscles, nerves... on every cell in their body.
The cause of the disease must be removed and that happens only through proper nutrition and maintenance of the pH balance of the body's fluids.
Apply this information to cancer: What they call cancer is not the disease, it is the symptoms - the effects, the mutated cells, or the tumours. Even if they kill all the cancer cells or remove all the tumours with surgery, you still have the same body internal environment, so the symptoms are likely to return, and you will have to live in fear of that. Until the cause is eliminated, the disease will persist, even if the symptoms have been alleviated or removed completely. It is quite common to have them send patients home from tumourectomies, telling them, "We got it all," only to have them back months later with the same problem all over again.
Acids and free radicals are what initiated the cancer in the first place. The acids and free radicals damaged the cells and caused them to mutate, and the immune system wasn't strong enough to detect and destroy the mutated cells before they replicated out of control, until there were enough mutated cells to be detected by science and given the prognosis.
What's more, they can go in and attempt to destroy the "cancer" cells with chemicals and radiation, and sometimes the treatment does destroy the cancer cells, but it also destroys other cells in the body, healthy cells, necessary cells, especially cells of the immune system. Now you're back with the same acid condition to start the process all over again... but this time with a weakened body and a weakened immune system. Many oncologists will not use chemo or radiation on a second recurrence of cancer because they know that these therapies on an already weakened body often result in death.
When we're lucky enough to get a second chance, we should do everything possible to change the situation that led to the problem in the first place. A second chance is a real blessing - and it's also a message that we've got to make changes in our lives.
A few more points about acidosis
Acidosis causes the Red blood cells (Erythrocytes) to clump together in a condition called rouleau (roo-LOW). Normally red blood cells are single and can flow easily through the blood vessels. When the blood rouleaus the body has to increase the blood pressure to push the blood through the smallest capillaries. So the four main circulatory problems created by rouleau are:
Acids interfere with enzyme function
Enzymes are natural proteins in the body that allow chemical reactions to take place. These chemical reactions are needed for all body functions including muscle movement, digestion, transfer of oxygen to the tissues, nerve transmission, immune function, actually ALL the functions of the body.
Here is a quote from Arthur Guyton, author of "Textbook of Medical Physiology", used by medical students:
“Precise hydrogen ion concentration is essential because the activities of almost all enzyme systems in the body are influenced by hydrogen ion concentration, Therefore, changes in hydrogen concentration alter virtually all cell and body functions.”
It's really important to understand this because any and all disorders lead to more diseases and disorders until your health deteriorates to the point where there is just not enough energy for healing. That's why we need to start making corrections as soon as possible, at the onset of any problems, or even better yet, before any problems develop. The only correct approach is to strengthen, balance, and nourish all systems of the body simultaneously.
The condition of our cells and the state of our immune systems determine how our bodies react to the myriad toxic agents they are continually exposed to.
From the moment we are conceived, the processes of life are carried out following the blueprint contained in our DNA. The DNA holds the genetic code for our life, health, and the physical features of our bodies. DNA, unless it has become mutated, conceives our body in a perfected state, and our cells are always striving to achieve that perfection.
So what goes wrong?
Acids and Free Radicals
Free radicals and acids are virtually the same in that they both have the same effects on the body.
Free radicals are atoms or molecules (groups of atoms bound together by shared electrons) which have lost electrons and have unpaired electrons in their outermost orbits or shells, and which, while in that unbalanced state, are seeking to gain electrons from another source in order to become stable.
Acids contain positively charged hydrogen ions (protons), while free radicals can be positively charged ions of any element or molecule, (although not all positively charged ions are free radicals.) In order to be free radicals, they must be unstable in addition to being positively charged. For example, the ion of calcium is positively charged (Ca++), but the outer shell is composed of 8 electrons with no unpaired electrons, so the ion is stable and not looking to replace electrons and therefore not a free radical.
The positively charged oxygen radical is called Super-Oxide. It is the most plentiful, aggressive and damaging free radical of them all. "Antioxidant" is the term that was originally coined to name a substance that can neutralize the oxygen radical, although the term is used to indicate any substance that can neutralize any free radical.
Most commonly free radical damage occurs near the DNA of the cells. Once an electron is taken from an atom or molecule, that formerly stable atom or molecule is now a positively charged free radical, which in turn will be compelled to neutralize itself by taking electrons from another stable atom or molecule.
The free radical/acidosis process repeats as a chain reaction which, if not stopped, will eventually result in the death of the body (acidosis is the term for the condition in which your body's fluids are acidic).
The damage that occurs from free radicals/acidosis is due to the fact that whenever an atom or molecule is split apart, energy is released. This is the same principle our body uses to produce energy from the breakdown, or splitting of the molecules in the food we eat, but that is done in a controlled way within the mitochondria of the cell, and the energy released is channelled for use by the body. But the energy released when electrons are torn from atoms and molecules due to acids or free radicals produces tiny, uncontrolled atomic explosions which damage or kill cells. If the cells live they will mutate, and when the mutated cells replicate themselves, the daughter cells will have the same genetic defects as the mother cells - a process that leads to cancer and other degenerative diseases.
One can see the damage done by acidosis in a live blood cell analysis under a microscope. Red blood corpuscles, normally round, after free radical damage, look like cookies with big bites taken out of them. This is called poikilocytosis.
Damage associated with acids does not come only from direct attack on cells. When the body fluids become acidic, the ability of the blood to carry oxygen is severely compromised... and this is disastrous because every cell of the body needs abundant oxygen continually.
The primary cause of all disease is oxygen deficiency, which is brought about by other causes such as the acidosis mentioned above, which is brought about by free radical damage which is allowed by diets deficient in anti-oxidants.
So then, the ultimate cause of all disease is nutritional deficiency.
When nutrition is consistently and correctly applied, all functions will fall into place. Acids, free radicals, bad bacteria, viruses, yeasts, and funguses will be neutralized, oxygen and other essential nutrients will be provided to the cells in due measure, and wastes will be eliminated effectively.
When a person has a heart attack it is because the cells that make up the heart muscle have been deprived of oxygen and can no longer function.
The same continuous oxygen requirement applies to every single cell in every single organ, gland, muscle, nerve, and bone in our bodies. You can go without food for months. You can go without water for days. But no matter how healthy you are, if you stop breathing for several minutes, you die. And that is exactly what happens with acidosis, except it happens slowly over an extended period of time.
The deficiency of oxygen caused by an acidic environment combined with the direct damage due to the acids causes degeneration that will continue to get worse until it kills you... unless you make the changes necessary to correct the condition.
Free Radical and Acid Damage
It is known that free radical damage is the leading cause of cancer, whether it be from smoking (one puff of smoke introduces 375,000 free radicals into the body), overexposure to the sun, eating burnt meats, heated oils, or the effects of any toxic substance acquired from diet, air, or absorption through the skin. Also, acids and free radicals are produced by the body's own metabolism. For example, the carbon dioxide formed during the metabolic process produces carbonic acid when dissolved in the blood. Exercise produces lactic acid in the muscles due to the breakdown of glycogen, which causes muscle pain. A by-product of meat metabolism is uric acid, which causes problems if not neutralized - gout or fibromyalgia, for example.
The body has a system in place to deal with free radicals and acids - but only when sufficient amounts of the proper minerals and other nutrients are available. If they are not, the body will pull the minerals it needs to survive out of the bones and the cells of organs and tissues.
Just to show you the effects of acids on bone, take some vinegar and place a chicken bone in it - after a while the acid will leach the minerals out of the bone (the electrically imbalanced atoms making up the acid need the minerals from the bone as electron donors in order to achieve balance), leaving the bone flexible, and when it dries out it will be brittle. Acids have the same effect on the bones in our bodies — and it's called osteoporosis.
I'm sure it will sound crazy to a person suffering from that disease, but osteoporosis is a good thing. Why this is so is because the leaching of minerals from the bones has actually saved his or her life. If people didn't have a "buffer reserve" of minerals in their bones to draw from to neutralize the acids, their pH would fall below the level necessary to support life, and they would have died. The body's fluids must remain between 7.0 and 7.8 pH in order to be healthy, and the levels of the blood must remain between 7.35 and 7.45 pH or else you die. It's a narrow range with very little tolerance.
Osteoporosis saving a person's life is not to be confused with the body healing itself. Osteoporosis is a degenerative disease. The body is giving itself a disease as an alternative to dying. The body is prioritizing its use of minerals to keep you alive. It's more important to neutralize the acids even at the expense of the bones than to lose your life, and your great subconscious is wise enough to make that distinction and that decision. But keeping a person alive is vastly different than healing that person and bringing him or her to real health.
The body has the miraculous ability to heal itself... but only when internal conditions are correct and the proper nutrients are consistently available!
This story will help you understand the healing process:
Suppose you cut your finger. It didn't seem bad, so you didn't bother bandaging or even washing it. Under normal circumstances, the body cleans, disinfects, and heals the wound so completely that even the fingerprint will be restored to exactly the way it was before it was cut. The code for your finger (and every other part of your body as well) is stored in your DNA, and when your immune system and other cells go to work to repair the damage, they restore the damaged part to that perfection.
But suppose you had heart disease. Isn't that a wound? Why doesn't the same healing process apply? Why doesn't the body heal itself of that disease? Doesn't the DNA include the code for the perfect heart?
The fact is, the same principles do apply to heart disease and all degenerative diseases. But the reason we don't just heal is because degenerative disease is maintained by continual wounding. Going back to our example, if every time the cut on your finger began to heal you cut it open again with a razor blade...again and again, it could not heal. So the first principle of healing must be: You have to eliminate the cause of the wound before any healing can take place. The same is true for heart disease and every other degenerative disease which are being maintained by the continual wounding by acids.
The body is trying to regenerate the damaged areas of the heart, but the acid condition is also destroying the new cells being created... the heart cannot heal. There is not a single drug, therapy, or treatment that can bring about the healing or regeneration of the heart - and there never will be. The heart can only regenerate when the internal acidic environment is corrected and the body is provided with the necessary nutritional building blocks.
The body is regenerating every minute you are alive, but if the wounding or destruction of the cells occurs at a faster rate than they can be replaced, you have degeneration. Degeneration means you're dying. And it's the direct effect of acids on the cells of your body.
Some people tell us they don't need nutritional supplements, because they're doing well enough without them. Sometimes they reluctantly admit... maybe they do have a "little arthritis" or whatever, but they're really not concerned about it. Well, they should be concerned!
They should realise they don't just have a little arthritis or whatever. What they have is the beginning of the disease that is going to kill them eventually, and they should be concerned now, when it's in the early stages, when they can more easily do something about it. Later it will be much more difficult. Furthermore, the same acid process that is destroying their joints is working on all their organs, muscles, nerves... on every cell in their body.
The cause of the disease must be removed and that happens only through proper nutrition and maintenance of the pH balance of the body's fluids.
Apply this information to cancer: What they call cancer is not the disease, it is the symptoms - the effects, the mutated cells, or the tumours. Even if they kill all the cancer cells or remove all the tumours with surgery, you still have the same body internal environment, so the symptoms are likely to return, and you will have to live in fear of that. Until the cause is eliminated, the disease will persist, even if the symptoms have been alleviated or removed completely. It is quite common to have them send patients home from tumourectomies, telling them, "We got it all," only to have them back months later with the same problem all over again.
Acids and free radicals are what initiated the cancer in the first place. The acids and free radicals damaged the cells and caused them to mutate, and the immune system wasn't strong enough to detect and destroy the mutated cells before they replicated out of control, until there were enough mutated cells to be detected by science and given the prognosis.
What's more, they can go in and attempt to destroy the "cancer" cells with chemicals and radiation, and sometimes the treatment does destroy the cancer cells, but it also destroys other cells in the body, healthy cells, necessary cells, especially cells of the immune system. Now you're back with the same acid condition to start the process all over again... but this time with a weakened body and a weakened immune system. Many oncologists will not use chemo or radiation on a second recurrence of cancer because they know that these therapies on an already weakened body often result in death.
When we're lucky enough to get a second chance, we should do everything possible to change the situation that led to the problem in the first place. A second chance is a real blessing - and it's also a message that we've got to make changes in our lives.
A few more points about acidosis
Acidosis causes the Red blood cells (Erythrocytes) to clump together in a condition called rouleau (roo-LOW). Normally red blood cells are single and can flow easily through the blood vessels. When the blood rouleaus the body has to increase the blood pressure to push the blood through the smallest capillaries. So the four main circulatory problems created by rouleau are:
- hypertension (high blood pressure)
- lack of oxygen and nourishment to the cells (causes cell death)
- toxic condition in the cells because the blood also carries carbon dioxide and other toxins to the organs of elimination (also causes cell death)
- hormones, endorphins, and the immune system also use the blood as a delivery system. If the circulation is poor due to acidosis... the body cannot heal.
Acids interfere with enzyme function
Enzymes are natural proteins in the body that allow chemical reactions to take place. These chemical reactions are needed for all body functions including muscle movement, digestion, transfer of oxygen to the tissues, nerve transmission, immune function, actually ALL the functions of the body.
Here is a quote from Arthur Guyton, author of "Textbook of Medical Physiology", used by medical students:
“Precise hydrogen ion concentration is essential because the activities of almost all enzyme systems in the body are influenced by hydrogen ion concentration, Therefore, changes in hydrogen concentration alter virtually all cell and body functions.”
It's really important to understand this because any and all disorders lead to more diseases and disorders until your health deteriorates to the point where there is just not enough energy for healing. That's why we need to start making corrections as soon as possible, at the onset of any problems, or even better yet, before any problems develop. The only correct approach is to strengthen, balance, and nourish all systems of the body simultaneously.