We are all products of our environment. Our genes are the first draft of what we are created to be, but the experience those genes face (epigenetics) is how the novel of our life is really written. This blog is about how this experience begins to unfold in our species.
Today, we begin to examine levee's 6, 14, and 26 in the Quilt document for the first time. We begin to show examples of these levee's by examining how the human brain forms and functions in an infant. This example will act as an analogy to help us understand many other processes as the blog series rolls on. There are many countervailing influences in life that on the surface confuse our intellect. They create the appearance of paradox, enigma, and myths, and mysteries. I find when we look at the world through the hull of a glass-bottom ship, to look through a kaleidoscope at the galaxies that exist on the edge of our mind, we begin to see the sense that nature makes from the chaos of the world. I like the irony that mysteries often create. Today, we are going to use some "other observations" we have all made to show you how the mysteries of our modern world might be solved asking better questions instead of settling for the answers we have been given. The Human Infant It is clear in modern medicine now that we can not have optimal human brain development unless we have a secure nutrient rich food supply for both mother and child. This relationship also needs to be maintained postnatally for several years after birth until neuralation is successful. It does appear in modern neurosurgery research that human brain development is programmed genetically to a certain extent, but is more malleable then we thought because of the new science findings of epigenetics. This is also more apparent in humans than other mammals because our brain is so complex that even small changes in functional regions can lead to massive clinical changes that become apparent as the child develops. Autism and spectrum disorders are a good example of this phenomena.
Today, we are going to dive into the gut flora story a bit deeper than we did in our first gut flora post to help you understand how a a change in gut flora might lead to changes in your health by altering your hormone panel. Obesity is an inflammatory brain condition. Where does the infection come from? The gut flora actually is what causes humans to become fat. It has to due with shear numbers and the species of bacteria in our gut. There is a particular flora that produces adiposity and obesity in humans. These bacteria make something called FIAF (Fasting induced adipose factor) that control this process. This factor blocks lipoprotein lipase (LPL) in fat cells. LPL allows us to convert dietary Free Fatty Acids carried in lipoproteins into neutral fats that are stored in adipocytes. Non Geeks: Our gut bacteria makes humans fat. Geek Alert: The FIAF is made by our liver, muscles, and our small bowel wall when food sources are in short supply. This is the signal to stop storing fat in our fat cells when food is scarce. What is not well appreciated by many is that the FIAF in our intestinal wall is controlled 100{a7b724a0454d92c70890dedf5ec22a026af4df067c7b55aa6009b4d34d5da3c6} by our gut flora. When we have a simplified gut flora it favors fat cell creation. When our gut flora is complex and healthy, it has 100 trillion cells with 250 species. We tend not to make fat in this instance either! Moreover, when the bacteria are active metabolically due to the presence of simple sugars, production of FIAF ceases, and fat creation is signaled. This implies that our gut flora is directly tied to fat creation in humans. The gut flora’s action is directly signaled to the brain via the afferent nerve fibers in the vagus nerve. In those newly created fat cells, a protein called leptin is also produced, and acts as a score keeper for the brain of how much fat is stored in the body. This messenger is sent to the brain around midnight when we are sleeping allowing the brain to assess total energy balance in the body.
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What are some of the medical conditions that are associated with osteopenia or osteoporosis? 1. Excessive alcohol intake- greater than two drinks a day consistently will do it. 2. Tobacco use- This causes a 100 fold increase in bone loss. Oral tobacco is worse than inhaled smoke 3. Stress- any cause be it emotional, physical, mental, psychic all raise cortisol chronically and kill bone 4. Lack of physical activity increases obesity risk, which increases cortisol from leptin resistance 5. Low calcium intake or absorption from gastrectomy or low acid production from any reason 6. Reduced strength and activity due to a chronic illness or a sedentary life (checked with a grip test) 7. Small build or leanness naturally – correlates with BMI below 19 for women and men. 8. Asian women have a particular propensity to osteopenia genetically and from their diet. 9. Drug therapy, for example, long-term use of corticosteroids such as prednisone-used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, celiac disease, autoimmune diseases, Crohn’s disease, IBD, and ulcerative colitis. 10. Low Magnesium, strontium, boron, Vitamin D3, Vitamin K2, elevated PTH levels, low sex steroid levels, high insulin levels, low progesterone levels, any cause of a leaky gut. 11. Menopause 12. Andropause 13. Any cause of chronic inflammation (perimenopause can cause severe acute bone loss) 14. Disuse atrophy from any cause (space travel) 15. Paralysis 16. High carbohydrate diets 17. Veganism or a plant based diet. 18. A diet high in whole grain (carbohydrates) is especially risky due to mineral malabsorption in gut 19. A diet lacking in animal protein and animal fat and cholesterol. 20. Excessive use of statins and thyroid hormone can cause osteoporosis 21. Age and sex: the older one is predisposes to osteopenia. Women lose 1-3{a7b724a0454d92c70890dedf5ec22a026af4df067c7b55aa6009b4d34d5da3c6} of their bone density ever year after their last period. 22. Chronic endurance athletics of any type cause severe bone loss due to chronic cortisol elevations 23. Gastric bypass patients carry enormous osteopenic risks. 24. Severe liver or kidney disease; Renal insufficiency can lead to osteodystrophy. 25. Diabetes 26. People with scoliosis of unknown cause (idiopathic scoliosis) also have a higher risk of osteoporosis. I believe this is because most of these children have severe underlying Vitamin D deficiency and a leaky gut, but this has never been studied in the spine literature. Any time I see a scolisosi patient, I always screen for low sex steroid hormones, low Vitamin D levels, and low Carboxylated osteocalcin levels. Bone loss can be a feature of complex regional pain syndromes.as they develop over time. It is also more frequent in people with Parkinson’s disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as well.