Vita Energy
Academik EANS and RANS, doctor-phytotherapeutist K.A.Treskunov
(Energy of Living Matter)
Vita energy – these words are likely to arouse irritation rather than discussions and disputes in the scientific community. Some specialists consider that there exists only one form of energy, energy as it is, others differentiate varieties of energy (electrical, chemical, mechanical, etc) but would not (or cannot!) recognize living energy and tend to treat it as electrical, chemical, mechanical, wave, etc. energies. This can be explained by the fact that until recently it has not been known how and where living energy is created in a living organism, where the potential living energy (PLE) is stored, how the ability to perform extremely complicated and diversified work arises under mild conditions.
That work is being done in a living organism is quite clear but whether the organism is capable of performing it is not certain. In biology textbooks this question is either left out or treated in a wrong way. A fundamental issue in biology is what are the first-existing functions of an organism. This question should not be neglected or reduced to simple enumeration of these functions.
Nature tends to harmony and simplicity and our consciousness follows this tendency. The process involves development which complicates consciousness, makes it more profound and sometimes confused.
What are the basic functions of living? Initially these were feeding and reproduction, and later respiration. The earliest life did not need respiration, it was anaerobic. Food was necessary for self-reproduction and breeding and for the production of glucose, a source of energy for the synthesis and resynthesis of ATP, adenozinetriphosphoric acid, a universal reservoir and accumulator of PLE. Under anaerobic conditions glucose, the reservoir of potential chemical energy, decomposes to give lactic acid and releases energy. The energy is used to synthesize and resynthesize ATP from amino acid components: adenosine and monophosphates. The process requires as much chemical energy as the amount of kinetic living energy released (KLE) during ATP decomposition. KLE is the energy providing all life: motion, food digestion, keeping an organism warm, etc. Nevertheless, development and sophistication of organisms, after sufficient amounts of oxygen were accumulated, required switching on to an aerobic way of obtaining chemical energy. This naturally demanded nourishment. And what about respiration? What is reproduction for? Nourishment is necessary to obtain materials for building and energy production. Respiration provides oxygen and expels (CO2) carbonic dioxide. Food assimilation produces glucose. In cells, glucose decomposes to water and carbonic acid (glucose + oxygen = H2O + CO2) to produced energy. Most people would answer the question “What is this energy used for?” as follows: “The energy produced by glucose “combustion” in oxygen provides the whole life activity of an organism, i.e. it is transformed into living energy ensuring the work of brain muscles, heart, lungs, glands, reproduction function, keeps an organism warm, etc.” A pupil at school would get an excellent mark for such an answer, he (she) was taught so. In fact, the answer is incorrect. The energy produced by glucose combustion in oxygen or upon decomposition to lactic acid is used by cell mitochondria to synthesize and resynthesize ATP. So, nourishment, reproduction and respiration are the basic, first – existing functions of life. All other functions, such as systems, blood, lymph, their circulation, nervous, endocrine and immune systems were developed to provide and maintain these basic functions. It is natural to suggest that organs (or organ) of nourishment and food assimilation together with reproduction organs should control the nervous, cardio – vascular and endocrinic functions of animals, man included. Whether we want it or not, but we have to turn the science of life “upside down” and search for a regulation stimulator in an organ which is even not considered as an organ.
Ancient physicians-scientists Hippocrates and Galen claimed a connection between mental disorder and those in the stomach, in its upper part in particular. This is evidently the reason why mental depression (hypochondria) was called after the name of hypochondriac. What organs are positioned there? They are stomach, liver, gall bladder, and duodenum. Peter Badmayev, a famous Tibetan physician, successfully treated (to complete recovery of a patient) such a serious disease as BORO. The story goes that nine famous physicians could neither determine the cause of the patient's disease nor cure it and came to the conclusion that the lethal end is inevitable. Only a Tibetan physician identified the disease and its pathogenesis. BORO is “disorder in respiratory metabolism in the first stages of alimentary at its catarrhal state” (P. Badmayev “The Basis of Medical Science of Tibet”, supplement, M. 1991, p.19, in Russian). Using modern knowledge in biology, physiology and pathology, BORO can be expanded as a disease of the organ of body control (regulation). What is this organ, “the first stages”, where digestion and assimilation of food occur simultaneously, organ which controls the whole body? It may seem that the first stage where starch is broken down, by saliva is the mouth. However, food is not assimilated in the mouth, it is swallowed and moves on. Neither is it assimilated in the esophagus. In the stomach, only proteins are digested, but not assimilated. Even water does not undergo assimilation there. Alcohol is alone to have this privilege. A food clot consisting of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and some other substances goes to the duodenum. There the clot is subjected to the action of powerful pancreatic juice and bile, so that proteins, fats, and carbohydrates are simultaneously digested in this medium.
Before the food clot gets to the duodenum, digestive juice of pancreas fills the pores of limbus penicillatus in epithelium cells where carbohydrates are digested to give glucose, fats to fat acids and glycerine, and proteins to give amino acids and all the products are simultaneously assimilated. When identified, this stage of digestion was called membrane or parietal by A. M. Ugolev. Such a complicated process of digestion and assimilation is due to a complicated composition of food. Carbohydrates (starch and sugar) are partly digested by ptyalin in the mouth, but mainly in the duodenum where they are immediately assimilated. Proteins, primarily as cell membranes of plants and animals, first undergo digestion in an acidic medium in the stomach by pepsin and then in an alkaline medium in the pyloric part by pepsin as well. This prepares the food clot for the medium in the duodenum where all enzymes work only in an alkaline medium. Fats are digested only in the duodenum by pancreatic lipase. Bile emulsifies fats so that their tiny drops could penetrate into the pores of limbus penicillatus. Final digestion of proteins to amino acids by trypsin also occurs in the pores of limbus penicillatus of the duodenum where they are immediately assimilated. So, proteins, fats and carbohydrates are simultaneously digested and assimilated in the duodenum. Only proteins are prepared for final digestion and assimilation in the stomach.
It can be concluded from the above that the harmful effect of mixed nourishment is exaggerated. Separate nourishment is recommended to patients with nonfunctioning or an ill (duodinitis) duodenum. Because gastric juice is the major stimulator of secretive and hormone function of duodenum, people, patients in particular, should begin their meal with protein-containing food which is the best food ingredient to start stomach secretion. The importance of final food digestion in the tiny pores of limbus penicillatus in epithelium is to prevent microbes (their size is 100 times larger than that of pores) from consuming glucose, amino acids, fat acids and glycerine because microbes consume only these ready products.
A meal is over, and metabolism, i.e. “combustion” of glucose in oxygen increases. This increase is called specific dynamic food effect (SDFE). SDFE turned out to actuate hormones of the duodenum via hypothalamus. It seems that mental and physical activity, i.e. kinetic living energy, should simultaneously increase. However, this is not the case. Only sexual activity increases (the saying goes “The way to the man's heart is shortest through his stomach”, to be more precise through his duodenum) whereas physical and mental activities decrease (Plenus venter non studet libenter). A man would tend to have a nap, he is in mild and complacent mood. The activity of women does not usually change. The explanation can be as follows. Originally, a man was a hunter, a fisherman, a procurer of food; a woman was busy bringing up children, taking care of them, teaching and treating them. These functions did not depend on repletion and hunger.
Rest and an increased metabolism are necessary for an enhanced accumulation of PLE, ATP and its resynthesis. Duodenum, with its hormones, controls not only metabolism and intensity of glucose combustion in oxygen via hypothalamus but the activity of mitochondria in each cell, that is, accumulation of PLE (satiated stomach) or KLE (hungry stomach).
In the 70s of the twentieth century, academicians A.M. Ugolev and B.A. Ovchinnikov isolated the hormone of duodenum – the hormone of repletion. Its effect was so strong that an animal kept hungry for two days and nights would refuse any (even the most tasty) food for 4 hours after the hormone was administered intramuscularly. What a remedy for those too stout! But B.A. Ovchinnikov died, the hormone of repletion was strongly disapproved by the majority of medical community. After the death of Ugolev, there left almost nobody to remember the hormone of repletion, which is a pity. I have kept thinking about the hormone since 1953 when I first met the case of duodinitis.
The synthesis and resynthesis of ATP requires proteins (amino acid), phosphorus and the energy of glucose decomposed to lactic acid or combined with oxygen forming water and carbonic acid. Hard and long-time work (mountaineering, climbing, long-distance running, etc.) causes deficiency of oxygen in an organism. Hypoxia is compensated for by an increase in the frequency of breathing. If this is not sufficient, anaerobic breathing becomes engaged: glucose decomposes to lactic acid, producing energy. But the amount of the energy is 18 times smaller than that produced by glucose deficiency, hypoglycemia, because the amounts of glycogen are small (about 400 grams). When hypoglycemia becomes mortally dangerous, the organism engages its fat-storing organs. Oxygen consumption increases by two times but hypoxia has already been compensated for by anaerobic breathing (anaerobic recovery of energy). The critical moment of hypoxia and hypoglucomia compensation is very hard for people to overcome. “I'll die if I make one more movement” – this is what they think. But this concerns only people who were untrained. What does training mean? Dictionaries usually explain the word “training” as giving teaching and practice to someone in order to bring to a desired standard of behavior, efficiency or physical condition. As to physical condition, training usually leads to adaptation. According to dictionaries, adaptation is making smth/smb suitable for a new situation, need, use, etc. One of the ways of training and adaptation of a human organism is hardening. To harden, as dictionaries explain, is to make or become strong and hard (physically), and bold, courageous, and staying (morally). But no explanation of the words training, adaptation and hardening is given from the physiology viewpoint.
Since the times of ancient Greece and Sparta, various systems of physical training, marathon included, have been developed. The curing effect of bathing in cold water on a human body and spirit has been known since the time of John the Baptist. But only in the end of the 60s and beginning of the 70s of the previous century, a well-known patophysiologist Felix Meerson proved theoretically and experimentally that physical training (hardening and adaptation) is adapting to hypoxia. Systematically repeated oxygen deficiency, increased in time and amount, causes the production of specific proteins to increase the mitochondria mass. As a result, mitochondria would resynthesize PLE – ATP in sufficient amounts for a shorter time than under normal conditions and generate sufficient KLE to perform a bigger work for a longer time. Stable adaptation to hypoxia could be developed within no less than 6 month time. Termination of exercises does not lead to immediate loss of adaptation, it would last for half a year and then gradually decays. Regeneration of adaptation takes less time after training is renewed. In 2 years, the mitochondria mass stops growing, but the efficiency of mitochondria increases by two times. Hardening and ice-cold water swimming are also related to adaptation to hypoxia. Usually, glucose oxidation proceeds at the temperature of human body. Cooling of the skin below 36.0 C, which is typical of swimming in ice-cold water, causes billions of cells of skin epithelium to suffer from hypoxia. Therefore, adaptation in this case develops within the same time as in long-distance running. That's why regular swimming in ice-cold water makes man healthy in body and spirit: he would enjoy life, become friendly, get rid of anger, hatred, aggression, envy, and other negative emotions, he would acquire fortitude to life hardships. Adaptation resists stress, prevents stress-induced diseases (hypertonia, diabetes, cancer, ventricle ulcer). Moreover, adaptation can help cure these and some other diseases such as bronchial asthma, etc.
During adaptation, hypoxia evidently goes on simultaneously with hypoglycemia. When passing to anaerobic breathing, hypoglycemia leaves hypoxia behind and requires stronger work of mitochondria. Therefore regular fasts of 24 to 36 hours a week followed by gradual going out of the fast within 24-36 hours (eating only buckwheat porridge without sugar and salt) would help develop adaptation within 6 to 24 months so that you would be healthy and happy.
Improvement of life goes through respiration, i.e. obtaining oxygen and expelling carbonic acid. The sense of this is in saving glucose. Combustion of glucose in oxygen generates 18 times more KCE than decomposition of glucose to lactic acid. Water and carbonic acid resulting from combustion can be used to synthesize starch, glucose and other organic substances with the help of solar physical energy (SPE). This was the major reason why respiration became one of the basic functions of the organism. All the above transformations proceed in universal energetic stations, mitochondria, whose structure and functions have been determined and studied only in the last 40 years owing to electron microscopy and biochemical technology. Mitochondria are present in each living cell. The larger the work to be done, the more mitochondria are in a cell. For example, each cell in the liver has two thousand mitochondria, a spermatozoon has only one.
The simplicity and harmony of nature permits the perception and understanding of the development of brain and other organs in spite of their most complicated structures.
Adaptation requires strong will, much time and patience. Therefore most people choose the way of saving living energy and, hence, stoutness, diseases, depression, anger, envy, etc. For them, I can propose an easy, harmless and rapid way of adaptation, plant adaptogens. They act like catalysts of thermonuclear reactions in mitochondria: under mild, warm conditions four hydrogen atoms combine to form one helium atom and to release colossal energy (journal “Wonders and Adventures”, 1988-1989). Radix eleutherococcus senticosus, panax schin – seng, rhaponticum carthamoides, aralia madschurica, phodiola rosea, echinopanax elatum as vodka infusion, 25 drops per 50 gr of water, are taken before breakfast and dinner. In nature, these plants help deers run at tremendous speed for hundreds of kilometers without weariness. This adaptation is unstable and should be maintained by regular intake of the infusion. Of a more stable adaptogenic effects are infusum cum herbae hipericum perforatum, thymus serpyllum, veronica officinalis, veronica chamaedrys; cum radix arhangelica officinalis, inula helenium, acorus calamus .
In the process of adaptation, special attention should be paid to the state of the duodenum as a center controlling both the whole organism and each individual cell with its mitochondria. The major disease destroying adaptation to hypoglucoma is duodenitis both acute and chronic. The disease can lead to duodenal hormone deficiency with serious syndromes: hypoglycemic and retarded doping-syndrome, hyperglycemic or premature dumping-syndrome, diencaphal syndrome, duodenal astenia and duodenal migraine. The procedure for treating this strange disease is simple and readily available. Below is a herb species №1 for 7-14 days: flores matricaria chamomilla, folium plantago major, mentha piperita 20 gr. each ; herbae hipericum perforatum, achillea millefolium 10 gr. each. Preparation: 1 spoonful of the species, pour 500 gr. of boiling water, keep staying 1 hour, filter. Take 100 gr. of the infusion 4 times a day 20 min before a meal and going to bed. Herb species №8 for the next 15-25 days: herbae achillea millefolium 90 gr., folium betula alba, herbae artimisia vulgaris 70 gr. each, flores calendula officinalis, matricaria chamomilla 50 gr. each, flores tanacetum vulgaris, trifolium pratense, herbae gnaphalium uliginosum 30 gr. each. Beginning with 26 th day and for 1-3 months speciul Fitocolini: herbae polygonum aviculare, hipericum perforatum, taraxacum officinalis, folium plantago major 50 gr. each, herbae melilotus officinalis, folium mentha piperita, vaccinium vitis – idaea, flores trifolium pratense 30 gr. each, and herbae polygonum persicaria 10 gr.
During adapting, smoking and alcohol must be excluded. Adaptation is prohibited for patients with virus hepatitis and liver cirrhosis.
I wish you to be healthy, happy and enjoy life by adapting to hypoxia and hypoglycemia.
Karp Abramovich Treskunov, candidate of sciences (medicine)
Center of gastroenterology, RAS
Post address
6, Institutskii prospekt, flat 23
142432 Chernogolovka,
Moscow region