Power Up Your Brain (9 page)

Until quite recently, scientists pretty much subscribed to the paradigm that all cellular functions, including apoptosis, were directed by the cell nucleus. But, as Nick Lane notes in his compelling book,
Power, Sex, Suicide,
“there has been a change of emphasis that amounts to a revolution, overturning the nascent paradigm. The paradigm was that the nucleus is the operations centre of the cell, and controls its fate. In many respects this is of course true, but in the case of apoptosis it is not. Remarkably, cells lacking a nucleus can still commit apoptosis. The radical discovery was that the mitochondria control the fate of the cell: they determine whether a cell shall live or die.”
³
Mitochondria, then, must be looked upon as being so much more than simply organelles whose job involves turning fuel into energy. They wield the Sword of Damocles.

Hippocrates was the first to use the term
apoptosis
, which literally means “the falling of leaves from a tree.” However, apoptosis didn’t gain traction in the scientific community until the pathologist Alastair R. Currie published an important paper describing cellular self-destruction as a basic biological phenomenon.
⁴
Thereafter, researchers used
apoptosis
to describe the process through which the body intentionally eliminates cells in order to serve a larger purpose.

This process begins even while the fetus is in the womb. As an example, during embryonic development, human hands initially resemble the webbed appendages of a frog. But death of the cells in the webbed area transforms these extremities, allowing for definition of individual fingers and refinement of the entire hand.

Furthermore, after birth, apoptosis is the protocol that enables your body to continuously rid itself of as many as ten billion cells every day, making room for new, healthier cells. The outcasts include a multitude of cancer cells. Most of the time, when these pathogenic cells appear, mitochondria send a signal that tells them to die rather than replicate. This is a very important mitochondrial function because runaway cancer cells don’t know they need to undergo apoptosis, and, without that message from the mitochondria, they would continue to reproduce, out of control, until they endanger the host—you.

THE PROBLEM WITH FREE
RADICALS AND CELL DEATH

While cellular suicide, as described above, is generally positive, it becomes a negative situation when mitochondrial function becomes impaired and sends signals that tell normal cells to die. In fact, this is the fundamental flaw in the mitochondrial mechanism that leads to the destruction of brain cells in essentially every neurodegenerative condition, including Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and Lou Gehrig’s disease, to name just a few. However, this brain cell apoptosis is not limited to just these diseases. The process occurs throughout your lifetime and is responsible for a general decline in brain function, even if not categorized as a disease per se.

And the catalysts—or culprits—are free radicals. Free radicals are chemicals that cause oxidative damage to tissues, essentially causing them to rust like a piece of iron left exposed to the weather. They can also damage proteins, fat, and even DNA. In fact, damage to your tissues by free radicals is thought to underlie the process of aging, a theory first described by Denham Harman, a biogerontologist who was then a research associate at the Donner Laboratory of Medical Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. His much-cited article, now considered to be a landmark work, appeared in 1956.
⁵

Dr. Harman also stated that free radicals are “quenched” by antioxidants and thus laid the groundwork for an understanding of the positive effects of ingesting antioxidants, which we will learn more about later in the book.

MITOCHONDRIAL DNA

Mitochondria play a far more interesting role than simply being an energy factory and the source of ROS. Indeed, there are many characteristics of the mitochondria that serve to differentiate them from all the other structural parts of our cells. For instance, mitochondria possess their own DNA (referred to as mt-DNA), which is distinctly separate from the far more familiar and more often studied DNA in the nucleus of the cell (known as n-DNA).

While the nucleus of the cell contains exactly two copies of its DNA, mitochondria may have anywhere from two to ten copies of DNA. Interestingly, the mt-DNA, unlike n-DNA, is arranged in a ring, a configuration much like that seen in bacteria. Furthermore, in addition to similarities in the shape of their DNA, mitochondria and bacteria both lack the protein surrounding their genetic code that helps protect it from free radical damage, while in contrast, nuclear DNA is invested with protective proteins called histones, which also serve to regulate its function.

These similarities led the biologist Lynn Margulis to propose an important new theory of the origin of mitochondria.
⁶
She posited that mitochondria evolved hundreds of millions of years ago from aerobic (oxygen-breathing) bacteria that gradually entered into an “endosymbiotic” relationship with anaerobic bacteria, which means they began to live inside the bodies of these other organisms. This symbiosis enabled the anaerobic organisms to survive in an oxygen-rich environment. Over time, the mitochondria assumed the primary function of energy production, intracellular signaling, apoptosis regulation, and perhaps communicating with the biosphere. Human mt-DNA contains only 37 genes, while n-DNA has thousands, and it is possible that, over time, n-DNA has been taking on more of the functions of mitochondria, allowing other organelles in the cell to specialize in such activities as protein building, waste elimination, and reproduction.

Eventually, one bacterium engulfed another. The result was that these formerly free organisms now reside within each of your cells. Because of their role in energy metabolism, we might expect larger numbers of mitochondria in the cells of tissues to be more metabolically active. And, indeed, individual cells of the brain, skeletal muscle, heart, kidney, and liver may contain thousands of mitochondria, comprising in some cells up to 40 percent of the cellular material. According to Professor Enzo Nisoli of the University of Milan, a human adult possesses more than ten million billion mitochondria, making up a full 10 percent of the total body weight.

So, while nuclear DNA’s main function is to provide the information your cells need to manufacture the various proteins that control the metabolism, repair, and structural integrity of your physical being, it is mitochondrial DNA that directs the production and utilization of your
life energy.
It determines the fate of every cell, tissue, and organ in your body and the energetic fate of your being as a whole.

David:
An Energy Crisis

“Where would you like to begin?” I asked “Susan” as I settled into my chair in the examining room.

“Let me tell you. I have a whole list of problems,” she began as her mother, who had accompanied her from their home state several hundred miles away, looked on.

“Perfect, because I am a ‘whole-listic’ doctor,” I replied, hoping to lighten her mood.

Susan’s problems began about four years earlier, when she had just turned 40. She described her life before becoming ill as active and full. She had actually been quite an accomplished athlete while at the same time working full-time and raising two young children with her husband.

Late in the summer she became suddenly quite ill with what she described as a “bad flu” that pretty much put her out of commission for the greater part of a week. The illness was accompanied by a fever that peaked out at 102 degrees. But it was unlike a normal flu, because after the fever and other symptoms like coughing and diarrhea had passed, she was still experiencing fatigue, even several weeks later.

“I couldn’t take it anymore. I just couldn’t function,” she continued.

Meeting the expectations of her previous active life became insurmountable, so, after a month of waiting it out, she visited her gynecologist, the only physician with whom she had a professional relationship. Blood tests indicated the need for a potent oral antibiotic, which she reluctantly but faithfully took. Two weeks later, Susan’s health had not improved.

“Can you describe exactly how you were feeling at that point?” I asked.

She proceeded to list her various complaints, ranging from “brain fog” to fatigue. “I could sleep for ten hours and still wake up tired,” she lamented. She went on to describe diffuse aching pain in her muscles and, to a lesser extent, pain in her joints as well.

As is so often the case, Susan began a journey, visiting doctor after doctor who prescribed an extensive battery of medical tests, all of which provided no helpful revelations. She was told on more than one occasion that she should consider seeing a psychiatrist because no explanation was evident in the various physical tests.

“All they did was give her antibiotics and steroids, over and over, and then tell her she was depressed,” her mother informed me. The look of frustration on the mother’s face rivaled that of her daughter.

About 18 months before I saw Susan, she had visited a doctor in a nearby state who specialized in Lyme disease. Through extensive blood studies, the specialist confirmed that, indeed, Susan was suffering from chronic Lyme disease and prescribed an aggressive antibiotic program that would help her regain her health.

“It was the first glimmer of hope for me,” Susan recounted.

She was first placed on two powerful oral antibiotics that she took faithfully for the following six weeks. With no improvement in her condition, she was switched over to intravenous antibiotics after getting an access port installed in her chest to facilitate the administration. Antibiotics were infused intravenously through the port seven days a week for the following four months, but to no avail. Another few rounds of various oral antibiotics were tried, but nothing seemed to help.

By the time Susan came to our center in Naples, Florida, it was very clear that she had almost reached the end of her rope. The desperation in her voice was palpable. Her life was devastated. She was overwhelmed by fatigue, body aches, and a new symptom that had started a year earlier, profound sensitivity to various chemicals. Just passing by a person wearing perfume or aftershave was enough to cause a debilitating headache and even more confusion.

At that point we reviewed the rest of her medical history; aside from a few minor ailments over the years, nothing stood out to provide any meaningful clue to what might be causing this severe condition. Nor did her family history provide any revelatory information. Indeed, her mother confirmed that before the onset of the initial illness, Susan was healthy and enjoying a wonderful relationship with her husband and children.

The standard physical examination added very little insight, with the exception that her blood pressure was a bit low. The neurological examination, which is a more in-depth assessment of various functions of the nervous system, also revealed no abnormalities. Then, as has been my practice for many years, I evaluated her pulse, not in the standard way of counting the beats and checking for a normal rhythm but rather from an Ayurvedic perspective.

Many years ago I was trained in Ayurveda, a system of traditional medicine that dates back to the ancient Vedic period in India. The word
Ayurveda
is derived from the Sanskrit
ayus
, meaning “life,” and
veda
, meaning “science” or “knowledge.” While I have never considered myself to be a true practitioner of Ayurvedic medicine, nonetheless the pulse diagnosis training has served my patients very well, often providing diagnostic clues when none was otherwise apparent.

And Susan’s pulse did tell a story. The Ayurvedic pulse gives information about the three
doshas,
or energies—
vata, pitta,
and
kapha
—that correspond to the energies of wind or air, fire, and earth. The sense I got from Susan’s pulse was like a cold wind blowing through a tree that had no leaves to capture and hold the energy. Basically, it felt as if she were “disconnected” from the energy forces blowing through and around her.