|
Below is an excerpt from the book written by James Lovelock - 'The Revenge of Gaia', whilst reading this I came across a theory of why some viral diseases, such as hepatitis C and B cause cancer through chronic inflammation of the liver. This book is a 'must read' for every human living on this planet, that has concerns about the future of Earth and our own lives in the very near future. In this book Mr James Lovelock advises that Nuclear Energy is the only way to go, and may be the only way for us to survive and slow down Global Warming. We have been confused and given deadly information by the media that we are all scared to even contemplate Nuclear Energy, well its time to change these views, and the only way for you to understand all this is to read this book as I have.
'Authors Quote' -
Within each of the billions of cells that make up our bodies are tiny inclusions called mitochondria; these are the power stations of our cells. Inside these tiny particles, fuel from the food we have eaten reacts with the oxygen that we have breathed in.
The output of energy from the mitochondria is a flood of molecule-sized rechargeagble batteries, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) molecules, each able to power for an instant our muscles and our brains, so that we can walk and run and think.
When discharged, these molecular batteries are recharged again at the mitochondrial power houses. For our bodies, with their billions of tiny mitochondria, the danger comes from the accidental leak of combustion products.
As oxygen reacts with the food products, unintended pollutants are formed.
These include the oxygen molecule with a negative charge called the superoxide ion, the hydroxyl radical and other highly reactive molecular species.
These destructive molecules escape from the mitochondria as toxic pollutants and also arise accidentally anywhere in the body where oxygen can react unchecked.
The omnipresence of oxygen in our bodies also greatly enhances the damage done by radiation and chemical poisons. The fiercely reactive radical products of oxidation will attack almost any other molecule they encounter, and this is how they damage intrictate orderly internal assembly of our cells.
Almost all of this damage is repaired by an evolved set of enzymes and systems - which we could look on as the security services of oxygen-breathing life.
But inevitably some damage is done to the genetic chemicals of our cells, like DNA, which are the programs and procedures for building new cells. Wonderfully, the damage to DNA is also repaired and there is a continuous check of its integrity.
In the course of a lifetime, unavoidably, a few of the billions of these comprehensive checks fail.
From the failures to repair oxygen damage, new cells are born, with fatal or near fatal disorders.
Most of the damaged cells commit cellular suicide using a death pill that every cell possesses called a capsase.
When this is activated it sets in course an orderly progression to dissolution. It is a miraculous process called apoptosis. Just imagine if each one of us, on concluding that he or she was so much more harmful than useful, began to take ourselves apart in so perfect a way that a tidy, orderly heap of spare parts for future human use was left.
Sometimes, the damage done to DNA by the products of oxidation disables one of the genes that sets the instructions for cellular suicide, and when this happens a maverick cell is born and grows unchecked. Then, after several more potentially adverse changes, a fully unrestrained cancer cell is born. It grows and invades and eventually may kill the animal that spawned it.
This is no more than an imprecise sketch of carcinogenesis. We still lack knowledge of the finer details, but it is enough to show how the life-giving power of oxygen has a dark side. By the time we reach the biblical allotted span of seventy years, 30% of us will have died of cancer, and for almost all of those deaths, breathing oxygen will have been the main cause.
Natural Nuclear radiation coming from cosmic rays and from the radioactive elements in the soil, the air and our homes, can and does cause cancer, and it does so because it is energetic enough to split the abundant molecules of water in the living cell and liberate those same free radicals that come from oxidative metabolism.
Other natural and man-made sources of cancer act like radiation, but none of them, apart from smoking cigarettes and too much sunburn, add significantly to the 30% who die from breathing oxygen.
Inflammation, as the name suggests, is a burning sensation and it is always accompanied by increased oxidation in the inflamed tissue and by an increased rate of cellular reproduction.
Not surprisingly, it is associated with cancer.
This is probably why some viral diseases, such as hepatitis C and B, cause cancer through chronic inflammation of the liver.
Few of us are aware that the oxygen of the air is the dominant carcinogen of our environment, but multitudes are convinced by the untruth that most cancers are an avoidable consequence of environmental pollution and there is an unceasing torrent of articles that sustain this false belief.
References:
James Lovelock - 'The Revenge of Gaia'
James Lovelock is the author of more than 200 scientific papers and the originator of the Gaia Hypothsisis (now Gaia Theory). He has written three books on the subject: Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, The Ages of Gaia and Gaia: The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine, as well as an autobiography, Homage to Gaia.
He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society since 1974. Since 1961 he has worked as a wholly independent scientist but retained links with universities in the UK and USA, and since 1994 has been an Honorary Visiting Fellow of Green College, University of Oxford.
He has been described as 'one of the great thinkers of our time' (New Scientist) and 'one of the environmental movement's most influential figures' (Observer).
In 2003 he was a Companion of Honour by Her Majesty the Queen, and in September 2005 Prospect magazine named him as one of the world's top 100 global intellectuals.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed