By Jimmie Moglia for the Saker Blog
Samuel Butler published his novel Erewhon in 1872. The title is the (almost) reverse spelling of ‘Nowhere’ and it applies to a country the author discovered. He probably had in mind the Southern island of New Zealand where he minded sheep for a while.
The protagonist, Higgs, tending sheep in a prairie, looks at a mountain in the distance and wonders what lies behind it. A native tells him that it is prohibited to visit that land. But inherent curiosity and the attraction of the forbidden prompt Higgs to attempt a visit.
After various treacherous obstacles he discovers a passage and finds himself in a beautiful rolling plain, where the air, nimbly and sweetly, recommends itself unto his gentle senses, whereupon he falls asleep. On awakening he is found out by the natives and following a debate conducted with gestures, he convinces them that he is human. The natives are particularly concerned with Higgs’s health, only allowing him to leave after he has had a thorough medical examination. However, after the medical examination, they decide to put him in jail.
While in prison Higgs learns the language and the unusual local customs of Erewhom, where, among other things disease is considered a crime. Instead, criminals receive psychological and psychiatric care and are treated with sympathy. Physical sickness is a crime of the body, but conventional crime is a psychological failing of the mind-soul and therefore psychologically curable and cured.
Higgs is eventually introduced to the king and queen of Erewhon and is ordered to stay with a man called Nosnibor (Robinson). Following several trips to the court Higgs learns of the country’s history and customs. The Erewhonians are vegetarians. And two-hundred years prior to Higgs’ visit, a scientist had demonstrated that machines had feelings as well, and thus all machines were removed from Erewhon. It happens that Higgs showed up in Erewhon wearing a watch, which made him even more suspicious and that is why they originally put him in jail.
Meanwhile he falls in love with Arowhena, one of the beautiful daughters of his guardian and would like to escape with her. The king is against his leaving. Higgs had a watch with him and maybe he would return with other machines. Looking for a way to escape, Higgs convinces the queen to let him build a hot air balloon, so as to be able to converse with the god of the air. The queen likes the idea, and the king agrees, secretly hoping that Higgs may fall to his death.
Higgs prepares for the voyage and smuggles Arowhena aboard the balloon with him. Everything goes as planned, and the couple soon finds themselves high in the air, drifting right over the mountain range. The balloon settles on the sea, and Higgs and Arowhena are picked up by a passing ship.
Butler wrote the novel as a satire of Victorian society, not knowing that he had anticipated some aspects of the Era of Covid, now progressively merging with the era of the Great Reset. Though Karl Schwab may be a doubtful character we owe to him the uttering of words (Great Reset) that accurately define and describe the reality we all experience and are directed towards.
For as long as a societal state or a profound societal change remains undescribed, people remain reluctant to consider it real or tangible. For example French writer Renaud Camus coined the term, ‘The Great Replacement’ to express the self-evident truth that Western European are being replaced by Muslim and other ethnic groups, according to the plan drafted by Kalergi, in his book “Praktischer Idealiosmus.”
Equally, Charles Schwab has linked, without hesitation, the Covid Pandemic with other dramatic societal changes. For the ‘Great Reset’, as we can see plainly, involves, among other things, the medicalization of society, including those reluctant members (relatively few) who have, so far, valiantly refused to comply.
But in a reversal of the original Erewhonians’ customs, the updated modern Erewhonians, or rather the Society of Therapeutic Capitalism needs humans who are ill or, while waiting for the Great Reset, are perceived as such. Therefore a ‘healthy carrier’ – someone who may host sundry viruses, including Covid, but is as fit as a fiddle – becomes an ‘asymptomatic sick,’ a danger to humanity, let alone himself.
But if we all are asymptomatically sick then all society is composed of potentially sick people. Therefore there are no longer citizen carriers of rights but only patients subject to necessary and unavoidable cures. Because they are potentially contagious and therefore public safety is in danger.
Consequently the right to health becomes the duty to health. Which in itself, we may all agree, is an excellent idea. Except that in a regime of therapeutic capitalism, the citizen transfers the responsibility for his own health to the body politic, now evolved into the therapeutically-politic.
Before proceeding any further, here is a bit of obviousness, which nevertheless must be stated, given the extraordinarily easy risk of misinterpretation. We all stand in awe at the skill, ability and almost artistry displayed by doctors and surgeons in cases of extreme interventions and trauma, at times literally reconstructing the bone structure of an individual severely injured in an accident.
But this has nothing to do with what Ivan Illich has described as the medicalization of life. With almost prophetic words he said that a professional and physician-based health-care system, grown beyond tolerable bounds, is sickening for various reasons. Commercially, it must produce clinical damages that outweigh its potential benefits. It cannot but obscure the political conditions that render society unhealthy (e.g. the ‘MacDonald’ society). And it tends to expropriate the power of the individual to heal himself and to shape his or her environment.
The medical or para-medical monopoly over hygienic methodology and technology – according to Illich – is an example of the political misuse of scientific achievements to strengthen industrial rather than personal growth. And, in some cases, the merging of political with medicalizing power, leads to the idea that, by naming a process or a theory ‘scientific’ it calls for quasi-dogmatic belief, even when the theory is questioned or opposed by parties who equally and officially qualify as ‘scientists’.
Such formidable alliance of politics and medicine aims at convincing those who are disgusted at the current socio-political evolutions that it is they who are ill, impotent and in need of technical repair.
According to Illich, the medical establishment has become a major threat to health. For society has transferred to physicians the exclusive right to determine what constitutes sickness, and who is or might become sick. And health-care has become a sick-making enterprise via a conceptual switch. That is, an intense engineering effort has converted (or caused people to believe) that survival, that is, being alive, does not depend on the performance of organisms but rather on various technical manipulations.
Iatrogenic (medically induced) unhealthiness results from the colonization of liberty by affluence, leading to the medicalization of life – as seen by the incessant advertisements for medicaments, giving the impression that there is something wrong with you if you are not sick.
The current over-grown health-care system creates and promotes sickness for three reasons.
It often produces clinical damage that outweighs its potential benefits.
It enhances (as it obscures) the political conditions that render society unhealthy
It mystifies reality and reduces the power of the individual to heal him or herself.
Medical ideology disables personal stamina as it transforms pain, impairment and death from a personal challenge into a technical problem. Characterizing the trivialization of pain, under the gloss of advertising, are the lines that promote sundry pain-killers on corporate media, e.g. “I have no time for pain.”
The dynamics of the interaction between medicine, beliefs and politics is nothing new, though it never reached the heights of Covid. It could be said that the evolution of disease patterns shows that doctors have affected diseases more deeply than priests did in earlier times.
To draw an example from the past, the case of tuberculosis is meaningful. The disease was a funereus hallmark of the industrial revolution. It reached a peak over two generations. In New York the death rate was very high in 1812. By 1882 it declined to 370 per 10,000. This is when Koch isolated and cultured the first bacillus. When the first sanatorium opened, the rate was down to 180. But by this time the name of the illness drifted or acquired a more generalized categorization, namely ‘consumption,’ often caused by a combination of living conditions and plain hunger.
And to quote another example, the combined rate for scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough and measles from 1860 to 1965, for children up to 15, shows that almost 90% of the total decline in death rate over this period had occurred before the introduction of antibiotics and widespread immunization against diphtheria. The general explanation refers to a decline in the virulence of the micro-organisms, improved housing and higher resistance due to improved nutrition.
Returning to the main point, the society of therapeutic capitalism needs subjects who are ill. For one, the dominant class is the class of capital, and notably of capitalism linked to what we now currently call ‘Big Pharma’. As if pharmaceutics should be rated in the contest of ‘bigness’ by necessity, by astral predominance or by heavenly compulsion. It then follows, as the night the day, that profit coincides with the permanent medicalization of society. A society of people who are ill or, if healthy, conceived and treated as patients, represents the best of all possible worlds for the dominant, turbo-capitalistic classes linked to Big Pharma.
As an aside, readers may recall that, during the regular Hollywood-style medical and/or pharmaceutical conventions, bigwigs from Big Pharma openly proclaim that “we need new illnesses.” Implied but never openly stated, is the “Denial of Death”, and the willed ignorance or obfuscation of an inevitable truth. Namely that even health is the slowest form of death.
In this ideal ‘Big Pharma’ world, if we are all asymptomatically sick, the whole society is made up of potentially sick people. Consequently the citizen as a holder of rights is converted into a potentially contagious Erewhonian, and a danger to public safety. Therefore he must at least prove with a ‘vaccination passport’ that he has partaken of the quasi-sacramental treatment. Alternatively, we are not yet to the point of confining him/her to an Erewhonian-style jail, but he will no longer enjoy the liberty to travel and other liberties. And who knows, sooner than later he will be forced to install and wear under the skin the Bill Gates’ tell-it-all chip.
If someone argued that this is an exaggeration, he should but observe the evolution, or rather the prostitution of the idea of liberty during our recent and historically miniscule period. The parallels between a medicalized society and politics need no demonstration.
For on the subject of the pandemic objecting voices are censored or denigrated, irrespective of their qualifications or titles. On freedom of expression, we now know that the turbo-capitalist media can shut down even the president of the United States. Which would seem but another proof of the forthcoming (or in progress) Great Reset, connected with and including the medicalization of society. Only one voice in politics, only one voice in health.
Furthermore, as philosopher Diego Fusaro pointed out, another author, Kurt Goldstein, in his book “The Organism” makes an important observation. The instinct of conservation, that leads us to sacrifice everything as long as we can save ourselves, is not a general rule of life.
But it becomes a law of life when life is threatened by illness. Who knows himself to be ill is ready for everything as long as he can save his life. On the other hand a healthy organism has the will and the ability to confront an imponderable and unexpected risk, as needed. And in some cases even the risk of life. Which explains why all or nearly all willingly accept limitations and sacrifices – in case of illness – whereas in other contexts they wouldn’t.
We are all either sick or potentially so. Illness threatens our life. The principle of conservation is triggered, inducing the majority to give up (almost) everything in the name of bio-security. Therefore in the context of the Great Reset, which derives from, but also includes what we can call the Bio-Reset, the danger of death for sundry and all cannot end. The mutations of viruses are potentially and in reality infinite, which the (media-driven) masses now take on faith and for granted.
Were it not so, the instinct of conservation would not prevail over the instinct of freedom, which involves risk. Therefore, in the neo-liberal, neo-therapeutic and turbo-capitalist new world order, the pandemic will ideally be infinite, just as infinite is the number of digits that can be attached to the ‘Covid’ label and maybe others.
Still, there is resistance, but militants – if that is the right word – must first combat the inertia or ill will of those who have submitted to the prevailing line of thought. Indeed, it is difficult to apprehend the rage of the true members of the resistance, from underneath an immense heap of willing-to-believe, undead bodies.
Good one Jimmie! But then we must always remember the 80/20 ratio that exists in nature – 80% do not change anything – those are just a mass, it’s the active and energetic 20% that bring all the changes. In case of the present Global Parasite it is less that 1% that is trying to make these changes, and with some success – for the sheer fact that they totally own and control the mind-fu***ng machine called “Mass Media” AND the money, (add most western politicians to that lot). In the process they are also trying to silence all opposition to their grotesque and delusional plans for our human race and these plans are a shocker! Make no mistake here..
Although, as for control of money, well, that is getting a bit shaky for them now and is getting shakier by the day. What this world needs right now is it’s own version of Global Mass Media, (come on Russia and China – you two have all the power and the means to do that, and properly – forget the RT and such like), showing to those masses the True face of what is subjugating and controlling them and then we will have a lot more willing to join the 20% and willing to fight this global Parasite that has taken over, which is in actuality, a putrid evil little tribe..
Excellent piece! Once again, we see “the organism” afraid for its life, so it willingly throws out all the stops and surrenders all of its freedoms in the name of “safety and security.” Gonna be a tough lift to undo all the cognitive damage that’s been done in the past year. I rant to everyone that will listen, mostly to no avail. The power of the Borg is strong these days.
This is a great essay.
Yes, general ill health is the desirable condition of society for those who seek to control us and who seem to be succeeding.
“Asymptomatic carriers” have been the major excuse for the instigation and continuation of locking down society.
No matter how thin the science the narrative continues.
Now we have “the variants.” Excuse me but I thought corona viruses were well known to mutate quickly, and this is why it so difficult to create any kind of vaccine for corona-induced illnesses. But we are force-fed transparent excuses for continuing draconian social controls and the “pausing” of lives forever.
I really like Jimmie’s notion of “self-conseravtoin at any cost.” It is really extremely selfish in that there is no other ideal–no ideal at all worth fighting for, such as freedom, freedom of speech, freedom from govt. interference, etc.
Recent video from Manchester, England, of police punching and manhandling a guy who just wants to keep his cafe open. I wondered at what point the crowd would take over and subdue the copper.
We are in Dystopia. No one can make any plans, and making plans is what keeps people enthusiastic about their lives. We are in prison being force-fed lies such as the one about the “insurrection” at the Capitol and the ongoing Covid BS. It is worse in the UK.
when the WHO removed sections that defined natural herd immunity and them only mentioned vaccine herd immunity, you know the game is up. there is no more reliance on our highly evolved immunity systems. trust bill gates as he is the new god.
one thing is for sure this has created a ggreat divide even greater than say 9/11 truthers. your either a zombie zog tv fear porn lover , or so mentally ill by cognitive thought you deserve isolation in gulags away from the herd
Shakespeare –
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
– Macbeth, Act 5, scene 5
A person born ought to die; but scientists are now tinkering with the definition of life and death itself. Trans-humanism is to be the new religion.
The blanket of security to the general populace has now been lifted by World powers.
After major geostrategic debacles, and as a symptom of failures, of universal propaganda, the World Empire is now in an asymmetric war against humankind itself.
However —
Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the lord’s purpose that prevails.
– Proverbs 19: 21
People will plot and plan, but remember
Allah is the best of planners !
– Quran, sura 8: 30
Some beautiful music –
https://youtu.be/oEfFbuT3I6A
I’ve heard many times the joke: ”Q: ‘What is life? A:’Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease, with a 100% mortality rate”’.
Generally people laugh at it, firmly convinced that it does not apply to them. Deep down they believe they are immortal and death is an accident, a punishment inflicted on them by a ‘psychopath, cruel, bloodthirsty, control-freak God’ scared that man can become like him and displace him. They believe that eventually they would find the cure and finally replace God. They are naturally infuriated by those who remind them that ‘life is a terminal disease’!
I spent 20 years in the medical device industry specialised in Cardio Vascular and Pulmonary. We understood clearly that if people stopped smoking it would kill the business. A successful business model in the medical field depends on keeping people ill, not on curing them. In the case of the Orthopaedic prosthetic field it actually depends on war. Those are the grim facts that drive privatised medicine.
“A successful business model in the medical field depends on keeping people ill, not on curing them”
I invented the antidote to that way of thinking in 1986. It got a US patent. It was approved by the FDA as an ethical “medical device” a few years later. There were no takers. My letters to big pharma were ignored. I guess I will have to now do it myself – in a place where big pharma cannot cancel me. :)
https://tinyurl.com/bibopatent
This article is so true! Thank you for your work, Jimmy!
And yes, we are in dystopia.
But in due time the tipping point will be reached, and even the most spineless sheep will start to resist.
It will happen like an eruption, as too much pent up rage has accumulated. That`s when the cult of gates will show even more of its ugliness and repress even harder, and people will be driven to fight against it just because this will be the only way left for people to feel like real human beings.
To quote Catherine Austin-Fitts: “Death is not the worst thing that can happen to you.”
Very good article as usual and spot on. Health is something we acquire through correct living, it is not something that we can purchase at a pharmacy, yet the propaganda for decades has been that it is, the cure is just around the corner. Pharmaceuticals such as penicillin have provided a wonderful new tool for humanity, likewise the advances in surgery. However the pharmaceutical business model is based on achieving life time usage, whether for cancers, blood pressure or now the latest one, vaccines.
What you wrote about the death rates for numerous diseases falling anyway is absolutely true, yet the vaccines took the credit. Of note too is that the majority of doctors at the time were against them. Study some pharmacology, most drugs mess up the bodies natural reactions dramatically (hence the side effects), fine for short term, but they should not be used long term.
If people want a vaccine after the side effects and dangers are explained properly, then of course they should be able to, however how can it not equally be our right to refuse any drug? The term medical fascism seems to have been coined recently, and that is exactly what it is. Government has been co-opted to force drugs on the population based on a paradigm of lies and manipulated statistics. This will not lead to a good place.
“Indeed, it is difficult to apprehend the rage of the true members of the resistance, from underneath an immense heap of willing-to-believe, undead bodies.”
Brilliant line Mr. Moglia and great essay. The comments have been excellent as well.
As Gravel Rash said, this will not lead to a good place – in the short term. But as Sudhi implies, there is a better place beyond the short term – at least for a very few.
AstraZeneca Sputnik V saving the world, from nothing
https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/news/136683/astrazeneca-to-test-combination-of-azd1222-and-sputnik-v-vaccines/
The RDIF said this offer is an example of Russia’s “proactive approach” – that it is prepared to share its technology with those willing to produce vaccines using the two-vector technology.
Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, commented: “This unique example of cooperation between scientists from different countries in jointly fighting coronavirus will play a decisive role in achieving a final victory over the pandemic globally. Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine is already saving people’s lives in Russia today through a large-scale vaccination programme. The decision by AstraZeneca to carry out clinical trials using one of two vectors of Sputnik V in order to increase its own vaccine’s efficacy is an important step towards uniting efforts in the fight against the pandemic. We welcome the beginning of this new stage of cooperation between vaccine producers.”
Excellent essay, JImmie!
My own escape from Erewhon came about as a result of my husband’s struggles with diabetes type 2. In Japan it is a real money maker for what insiders call the “medical Mafia,” who will go as far as actually shooting down a family or two to protect their racket. Most people in Japan put all their trust in their doctor, and fail to take any responsibility for their own health, so they are easy to take advantage of. When they scheduled my husband for renal dialysis (heavily subsidized) despite his kidney function tests being normal, my husband broke free and began taking responsibility for himself. He is on insulin, and it can be hard to find doctors who will prescribe that for diabetics (that’s not a typo–it’s the reality in Japan). We moved recently, and the first doctor he went to tried to chastise him for counting carbs! He had my husband wear a device to record his blood sugar for a week, and the figures were significantly lower than what my husband found during the same period with his own frequent testing and recording. The doctor simply ignored the fact my husband was testing himself and tried to pass off the recorded values as proof of hypoglycemia as a result of my husband’s taking control of his own health.
This is a pretty stark and shocking example of medical fraud. Most that I encounter is more subtle, but I have a very uneasy relationship with any doctor in Japan, and finding ones I can trust to perform the tests and give me their opinion is hard. They are all afraid of getting sued, and most are in a pinch, like doctors in the US, who have to fear for losing their license if they practice honest medicine.
One redeeming facet of life in Japan is a higher level of scientific education among the public. I think this is the biggest reason the government is not talking about making COVID vaccination mandatory. That could actually spark a rebellion. If they are trying to make good with Gates’ coven, they’ll have to proceed more slowly and subtly.
A very thought provoking essay Jimmie. Thank you. But I’m going to say that Adolfo Bioy Casares’ story “The Invention of Morel” is more prescient and urgent than that of Butler’s. Its closing sentence, for me, is one of the strangest, saddest and hopeless yet somehow hopeful in literature.
btw when are you going to give us a book review of Manzoni’s “The Betrothed”. Now that would really be something! You were once a musician, I think. Maybe still. So you take requests, yes?
Best wishes.
Big Pharma and Big Med (Health Insurers & Hospitals) needs to be smashed.
They are as dangerous as the Big Tech telco social media operators.
For the past 150 years this new industry has developed where they sell treatments not cures, when they know cures do exist for many things.
The way to beat them is to stop buying their junk and go back to simply old fashioned foods and medicines.
Research the old medicines.
TB deaths fell off after the jump to electrical lighting, but that the death rate fell before this time is curious. It seems the dangers of burning fats and oils for lighting wasn’t unknown, and this awareness allowed for fuels like kerosene lamps and gaslighting. Burning fats and oils are likely a contributing factor to lung infections, and the clean light of electric bulbs was immediately recognizable as superior since not only was there no soot and oil residue and deadly monoxide gas, with no loss of ambient air to breath. It may be the case that kerosene was a factor in the initial decline of TB, as it does burn cleanly compared to the alternatives and also itself is a strong antimicrobial, and a TB remedy when applied to the chest (Vicks vapor rub).
TB did sell electrification both directly and indirectly, and this raises the point of what corona will lead us into buying. These are in fact the very industrial revolution milestones now being discussed in the news, as the crowded cities is one, and the electric motor the second, digital transistor the third, and corona now promising to usher the supposed fourth via the reset. In a nutshell the these revolutions raised us up from the earth, so as to no longer belong to it, and one can suppose the corona revolution will return us to the earth from where we came.
A most excellent article–your best ever . I’d love to see this posted also on Zerohedge.com or some other news aggregator.
I am pondering your sentence, ” Even health is the slowest form of death.” The philosophical statement of yore was that life was the slowest form of death (momento mori) but what I see in my neighborhood of mainly elders is an incredible level of subsidized bad health and a slow aging that is burdensome although clung to fiercely.
Whenever I go to an MD, which is as seldom as possible,I am told with amazement that for my age, I am one of the few people not on medication at all. Then, they try to find something “I need” by ordering a test or advocating for a vaccine ( there are a multitude of them). Whatever happened to “Do No Harm”? The ER doctors at least just deal with immediate problems like wheezing.broken legs etc. etc.
Another aspect of this narcissistic, medico-politico abuse state being put into place in the USA is that most people do not have the life experience to understand the perversity of it all. For example the only other person around me who “gets it” at a core level is a tough woman who survived the power plays of a psychotic family and who happens to be my next door neighbor. Nothing gets by her…nothing. And we agree on everything except the rapture.
teranam 13
I have had the same experience when it comes to my age and drugs. When I renewed my driving licence a couple of years ago, the lady asked me what kind of medication I was on. When I told her ‘none’ she looked at me with suspicion, as if a senior citizen could survive without prescription drugs.
For profit health care system strikes me as immoral. The mindset of making money on sick people makes me think about the scripture vers ‘the love of money is the root of all evil’
“Ancient Chinese believe that everything in the universe is interconnected; and that Qi, together with yin yang, and the five elements are what make up the universe, as well as our bodies. These concepts has been around for thousands of years.
While Western medical doctors believe that most diseases are caused by microorganism such as bacterial and viruses, or genetic disorders, a TCM doctor believes illnesses are caused by imbalance of yin and yang and disrupted flow of Qi in the body.”
http://qi-encyclopedia.com/?article=Understanding-Yin-Yang-and-Qi
Another great essay. Thank you Mr. Moglia
“Of all the anti-social vested interests the worst is the vested interest in ill-health.” https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5069/5069-h/5069-h.htm
Shaw also had some pertinent observations to make about this subject, particularly vaccinations.
It is thought Butler got some of his ideas from the Contagious Diseases Acts, which permitted the confinement of women thought to be prostitutes and their subjection to checks for venereal disease. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagious_Diseases_Acts
Anything and everything for money. Thankfully however, there are doctors and scientists like Dr. Myron Wentz from USANA fame who have done some truly fantastic work on diseases and like one of his team said a long time ago now:
“At the turn of the last century we were all dying from infectious but today it is the direct opposite. Today we are all dying from degenerative diseases.”
Why? Our diets and the rancid food we are all eating.
Here for your reading pleasure a very old article from the 1990’s and note the Russian collusion lol in this:
A landmark study published in The New England journal of Medicine in 1996, which many scientists may have overlooked because of the small number of patients involved, challenges the world’s accepted theory about
atherosclerosis, and helps to confirm the diirection USANA scientists are taking in regard to heart disease.
The study, Premature Atherosclerosis in Patients with Familial Chylomicronemia Caused by Mutations
in The Lipoprotein Lipase Gene” provided us an important clue from people who have a defect defect in lipase the enzyme that helps utilize lipids. While these patients at first displayed low risk factors for
atherosclerosis, such as low LDLs, low cholesterol and adequate HDL, they were still they were still developing the disease prematurely.
We know that lipids are the most sensitive substances to free radical damage, or oxidation. The accepted theory about atherosclerosis is that there is some damage to the endothelium, or lining of the arteries, which is not able to heal properly. It is well known that the atherosclerotic lesion progresses eventually forming a
thrombus which canblock the artery, potentially leading to a heart attack or stroke. Based on this isolated report, we at USANA propose that there may be more to this story. That perhaps due to inadequate diet, eating too much fat, incomplete digestion of that fat, and lack of antioxidants those lipids are susceptible to
oxidation beginning right in the gut. This coud be a potential source of cytotoxicity, causing damage throughout the body. We know that oxidized lipids inhibit activation and proliferation of lymphoid cells, which are necessary in the healing process, So, our hypothesis is that there is inadequate healing of the atherosclerotic lesion because of the cytotoxicity of oxidized dietary lipids. Is there evidence to support this
hypothesis? Today we are seeing high-fat diets and fast-food eating habits-gulping down Iarge amounts of food with inadequate time for digestion. With the expert scientists and analytical capabilities in USANA’s
laboratories, we now know that many of the foods we consume have high peroxide values.
Were, eating rancid, oxidized fats regularly, and foods devoid of natural antioxidants and fiber. With hasty eating, we are creating a time bomb in our gut, where food is not being properly digested, resulting in free radical exposure and cytotoxic damage. To explore this hypothesis, I traveled to Russia to engage our USANA scientists at the Cardiology Research Center in Moscow in cytotoxicity studies of oxidized iipids.
With the Institute’s ultracentrifuges (that spin at such a high rate of speed they pellet out viral particles and large molecules), we can spin down the bloods digestive products and isolate the chylomicron fractions which
contain dietary lipids. We introduce them into cell cultures to see how the cells react to these digestecd nutrients.
Photo #1 is a photo micrograph of a monolayer of astrocytes. Typically, to grow cells you put a few in a flask, they grow and divide and become confluent. If they are normal, they will stop growing when they butt up against each other forming a single layer, or monolayer, of cells. If they are malignant or transformed, they are not inhibited by contact with neighboring cells and they will stack on top of each other. Photo #l is of a beautifLrl confluent monolayer. These cells are no longer growing, but thev are respiring and metabolizing. They’re just doing all the wonderful things of life that cells do when they are healthy and properly nutriented.
Photo #2 shows the cells that were exposed to isolated chylomicrons which contain oxidized lipids as determined by the analytical laboratory in Moscow. These cells look like they’ve been through a war. The cellular damage is quite obvious. At higher magnifications you would be able to see that the cellular and mitochondrial membranes are are severely damaged. Just think that these same substances can be dessimanated throughout your body, via the blood to every tissue every cell
We have yet to analyze the carcinogenic potential of this, but from what we are seeing, i suspect these substances will also prove to be carcinogenic.
Photo fl3 shows the same experiment except the antioxidants were added. there was a marked but incomplete inhibition of the effects. I know you are not cytologists and are not used to seeing cells but you can see the difference. USANA’s Project Heart is conducting more research into oxizdizable foods, eating habits, and what measures can be taken (such as antioxidant ingestioni) to protect the cells in our bodies from this potential source of oxidative damnage.
I don’t know where the world’s researchers have been on this. We should have known about this years ago. Something as damaging as this going on in the body, and having no report of it in medical Literature is most unfortunate. But then, how man scientists have access to ultra centrifuges, cell cultures and analytical laboratories that can measure oxidized lipids accurately? Or perhaps it,s a situation of, as Louis Pasteur said…Chance favors the prepared mind,,,and we stumbled onto something that wasn,t being looked for.
The message today is to take antioxidants with food. If these studies prove out, they will show that that a major source of source of exposure to oxidized molecules in the body could begin in the gut as a result of our diet and eating habits. Therefore, slow down and enjoy your food. focus on quality not quantity. Stop eating before your full Don’t make every meal a Thanksgiving Feast. Combine oxidant containing foods with oxidant generating foods. For example eat vegetables, and fruits with meat.” Dr. Wentz
By the way when I was a teenager a Greek named Spiro saw me talking about my new pair of glasses and he approached me asking a question.
How come everyone here ‘Canada’ needs glasses?
and then he added growing up in Greece no one had and wore glasses.
I didn’t know how to reply at first then asked him what no one had bad eyes? He just shrugged his shoulders at me.
Then came my brother a few years ago who upon learning I paid 600. dollars of 876.00 for progressives he called me stupid and said he would never ever pay that! For him 1.49 special at the drug store suited him just fine?
My how far we have come in health care really. Reminds me of these words of Malcolm Muggeridge:
“Worthy endeavor with an interested motive nearly always results in the exact opposite of what was intended. Thus, education aimed at producing literates for industry produces illiterates for anarchy. The more motorways the more accidents, the more psychiatrists the more lunacy, hypochondria burgeons with the health service and delinquency with remedial prisons.”
Thanks Moglia for a great article.
Cheers