My review of 100 journals for the month of December 2015 was quite fruitful. It is my sincere wish for your 2016 year that you may find a way to apply the simple concepts contained therein. They are a distillation of facts that are revolutionizing the practice of medicine and our understanding of how to stay healthy, live longer, and not only prevent, but cure chronic illnesses.
The most salient references are provided below with abstracts. If you prefer to study their sources, access most of them in the November 6th issue of the Journal Science. It is one of the richest I have studied in three decades. During this time I have seen many Nobel Prizes awarded to brilliant doctors studying Mother Nature and its healing power. The 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine was recently awarded to doctors who extracted natural therapies for parasites from Japanese top soil bacteria. Mother Nature’s bounty has been repeatedly demonstrated: over 80% of pharmaceutical therapies have been derived from Her.[1]
But, there is nothing new under the Sun. Mother Nature’s healing power has been extolled from Hippocrates (“Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine thy food,”) to the first modern healer in the 17th century, Paracelsus: “The art of healing comes from Mother Nature, not from the physician.”
Health depends on proper fueling of each of our 50-100 trillion cells making up our body. Without proper Energy and Information they cannot do their job. We call this principle Metabolism which now inspires entire medical journals.
This is pure Physics which maintains that ALL THINGS ARE CONNECTED under the Sun. We cannot harness the Energy and Information the Sun provides for us through photosynthesis if we do not absorb nutrients properly from the Gut. Eating a diet based on plants, avoiding processed foods and excessive meats is vital in order to maintain the bacteria that handles food, produces energy and maintains our immune system.
Even the drugs you may take to treat symptoms are processed by your gut bacteria. Some of us get more/less benefits and side effects from drugs depending on what kind of gut flora we harbor. Of course, antibiotics, and drugs like acid-blocking pills[2] have a significant negative impact on our friendly Microbiome, or gut microbes.
Simply put, keep your gut in good shape and you will enjoy better health as you age, even a lower risk of cancer. As you improve gut function practically ALL your pesky health issues will get better, from brain and mental issues to immune system problems like joint pain. Now, why don’t we hear about these simple concepts in the mainstream media? Why have we been told that simple interventions like vitamin C supplementation have no benefits? Why has Congress decided to reverse the well-researched recommendation that we eat less meat and sugar?[3]
Follow the money: it will lead you to the answer. Politics and economics that favor big corporations at the expense of We the People have compromised our national and personal health.
References below
A New Golden Age of Natural Products Drug Discovery.
J. Cell Volume 163, Issue 6, p1297–1300, 3 December 2015.
The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to William C. Campbell, Satoshi Omura, and Youyou Tu for the discovery of avermectins and artemisinin, respectively, therapies that revolutionized the treatment of devastating parasite diseases. With the recent technological advances, a New Golden Age of natural products drug discovery is dawning.
Microbiomes in light of traits: A phylogenetic perspective.
J. Science 6 November 2015: Vol. 350 no. 6261
Microbial communities—microbiomes—are intricately linked to human health and critical ecosystem services. New technologies allow the rapid characterization of hundreds of samples at a time and provide a sweeping perspective on microbiome patterns. However, a systematic understanding of what determines microbiome diversity and composition and its implications for system functioning is still lacking. A focus on the phenotypic characteristics of microorganisms—their traits—offers a path for interpreting the growing amount of microbiome data. Indeed, a variety of trait-based approaches have been proposed for plants and animal communities, and this approach has helped to clarify the mechanisms underlying community assembly, diversity-process relationships, and ecosystem responses to environmental change. Although there is a growing emphasis on microbial traits, the concept has not been fully appreciated in microbiology. However, a trait focus for microorganisms may present an even larger research opportunity than for macro-organisms. Not only do microorganisms play a central role in nutrient and energy cycling in most systems, but the techniques used to characterize microbiomes usually provide extensive molecular and phylogenetic information.
Circadian Clock and Cancer Metabolism.
J. Cell Metabolism, Cover issue December 1, 2015.
The circadian clock regulates rhythmic gene expression and synchronizes cellular metabolism with food availability and sleep. [Poor diets and lack of sleep] disrupt the molecular clock and metabolism to promote cancer cell growth.
Obesity: An overview of possible role(s) of gut hormones, lipid sensing and gut microbiota.
J. Metabolism—Clinical and Experimental, January 2016 Volume 65, Issue 1, Pages 48–65
Obesity is one of the major challenges for public health in 21st century, with 1.9 billion people being considered as overweight and 600 million as obese. There are certain diseases such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and several forms of cancer which were found to be associated with obesity. Therefore, understanding the key molecular mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of obesity could be beneficial for the development of a therapeutic approach. Hormones such as ghrelin, glucagon like peptide 1 (GLP-1) peptide YY (PYY), pancreatic polypeptide (PP), cholecystokinin (CCK) secreted by an endocrine organ gut, have an intense impact on energy balance and maintenance of homeostasis by inducing satiety and meal termination. Glucose and energy homeostasis are also affected by lipid sensing in which different organs respond in different ways. However, there is one common mechanism i.e. formation of esterified lipids (long chain fatty acyl CoAs) and the activation of protein kinase C δ (PKC δ) involved in all these organs. The possible role of gut microbiota and obesity has been addressed by several researchers in recent years, indicating the possible therapeutic approach toward the management of obesity by the introduction of an external living system such as a probiotic. The proposed mechanism behind this activity is attributed by metabolites produced by gut microbial organisms. Thus, this review summarizes the role of various physiological factors such as gut hormone and lipid sensing involved in various tissues and organ and most important by the role of gut microbiota in weight management.
Sleep Disorders and [Gut] Inflammatory Disease Activity: Chicken or the Egg?
Am J Gastroenterol 2015; 110:484
Sleep dysfunction is a highly prevalent condition that has long been implicated in accelerating disease states characterized by having an inflammatory component such as systemic lupus erythematosus, HIV, and multiple sclerosis. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic, debilitating disease that is characterized by waxing and waning symptoms, which are a direct result of increased circulating inflammatory cytokines. Recent studies have demonstrated sleep dysfunction and the disruption of the circadian rhythm to result in an upregulation of inflammatory cytokines. Not only does this pose a potential trigger for disease flares but also an increased risk of malignancy in this subset of patients. This begs to question whether or not there is a therapeutic role of sleep cycle and circadian rhythm optimization in the prevention of IBD flares. Further research is needed to clarify the role of sleep dysfunction and alterations of the circadian rhythm in modifying disease activity and also in reducing the risk of malignancy in patients suffering from IBD.
Mediterranean Diet and Invasive Breast Cancer Risk Among Women at High Cardiovascular Risk in the PREDIMED Trial A Randomized Clinical Trial.
JAMA Intern Med. 2015;175(11):1752
Microbes aid cancer drugs.
J. Science 6 November 2015: Vol. 350 no. 6261 pp. 614-615.
A new class of cancer treatments that unleash the power of the immune system on tumors may depend on some unlikely allies. Two studies of mice in this week’s issue of Science demonstrate that the gut microbiome—the swarms of microorganisms dwelling in the intestines—determines how effective these cancer immunotherapies are. Known as checkpoint inhibitors, the therapies foil one of cancer’s most devious survival tricks: its ability to turn off the immune response that might otherwise attack tumor cells. In one case, researchers found that a checkpoint inhibitor targeting CTLA4, a molecule on T cells, works best in mice if their guts contain bacteria in the Bacteroides and Burkholderia genera. In the other, a drug targeting PD-L1 showed a similar dependency on members of the genus Bifidobacterium.
Vitamin C could target some common cancers.
J. Science 6 November 2015: Vol. 350 no. 6261 p. 619
Decades ago, Nobel Prize–winning chemist Linus Pauling was relegated to the fringes of medicine after championing the idea that vitamin C could combat a host of medical conditions, including cancer. Now, a study published online this week by Science reports that vitamin C can kill tumor cells that carry a common cancer-causing mutation and, in mice, can curb the growth of tumors with the mutation. If the findings hold up in people, researchers may have found a way to treat a large swath of tumors that have lacked effective drugs. Because high dose vitamin C is already known to be safe, clinical trials to test this idea could move ahead quickly.
Microbiota-Modulated Metabolites Shape the Intestinal Microenvironment by Regulating NLRP6 Inflammasome Signaling.
J. Cell Volume 163, Issue 6, p1428–1443, 3 December 2015
Host-microbiome co-evolution drives homeostasis and disease susceptibility, yet regulatory principles governing the integrated intestinal host-commensal microenvironment remain obscure. While inflammasome signaling participates in these interactions, its activators and microbiome-modulating mechanisms are unknown. Here, we demonstrate that the microbiota-associated metabolites taurine, histamine, and spermine shape the host-microbiome interface by co-modulating NLRP6 inflammasome signaling, epithelial IL-18 secretion, and downstream anti-microbial peptide (AMP) profiles. Distortion of this balanced AMP landscape by inflammasome deficiency drives dysbiosis development. Upon fecal transfer, colitis-inducing microbiota hijacks this microenvironment-orchestrating machinery through metabolite-mediated inflammasome suppression, leading to distorted AMP balance favoring its preferential colonization. Restoration of the metabolite-inflammasome-AMP axis reinstates a normal microbiota and ameliorates colitis. Together, we identify microbial modulators of the NLRP6 inflammasome and highlight mechanisms by which microbiome-host interactions cooperatively drive microbial community stability through metabolite-mediated innate immune modulation. Therefore, targeted “postbiotic” metabolomic intervention may restore a normal microenvironment as treatment or prevention of dysbiosis-driven diseases.
Breaching the gut-vascular barrier.
J. Science 13 November 2015: Vol. 350 no. 6262 pp. 742
The intestinal barrier plays a critical role in health and disease by limiting systemic dissemination of microbes and toxins while allowing nutrients to access the circulation (1). The portal venous system ensures that substances absorbed in the intestine transit first through the liver, where they can be further metabolized and detoxified (2). Moreover, it is thought that the liver can play a role in tolerance (3). On page 830 of this issue, Spadoni et al. (4) characterize the gut-vascular barrier (GVB) and propose how bacteria can disrupt it, allowing their passage into the bloodstream and spread to the liver and spleen.
Spooky Action at a Distance.
J. Science 6 November 2015: Vol. 350 no. 6261 p. 639
The concept of nonlocality, wherein a particle can influence the behavior of another particle even if they are miles apart, is, according to George Musser, “the mother of all physicsriddles.” In just under 300 pages, Musser deftly traces the history of our quest to understand this curious phenomenon, covering an ambitious breadth of challenging topics from string theory to the multiverse to the unification of physics.
Stool consistency is strongly associated with gut microbiota richness and composition, enterotypes and bacterial growth rates
J. Gut 2016;65:57
Fish, n–3 PUFA consumption, and pancreatic cancer risk in Japanese: a large, population-based, prospective cohort study
Am J Clin Nutr 2015 102: 1490
Can Your Microbiome Tell You What to Eat?
J. Cell Metab Volume 22, Issue 6, p960–961, 1 December 2015
Prebiotic consumption and the incidence of overweight in a Mediterranean cohort: the Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra Project
Am J Clin Nutr 2015 102: 1554
The ecology of the microbiome: Networks, competition, and stability
J. Science 6 November 2015: 663
Can Gut Bacteria Control Mental Health?
J. Psychology Today Epub Dec 14 2015
Anticancer immunotherapy by CTLA-4 blockade relies on the gut microbiota
J. Science 27 November 2015: 1079
Commensal Bifidobacterium promotes antitumor immunity and facilitates anti–PD-L1 efficacy
J. Science 27 November 2015: 1084-1089.
A new dawn for cataracts [Plant sterols]
J. Science 6 November 2015: 636-637.
- “Drug Discovery and Natural Products: end of an era or an endless frontier?”
J. Science 2009;325:161↑ - J. Gut 2015, http://bit.ly/1MlI2fI ↑
- Salt Lake Tribune December 17th 2015 ↑
